Content area
This thesis aims to demonstrate the importance of legacy playback equipment to accessing analog audiovisual media in libraries and archives. Legacy playback equipment offers users a vital means to experience the content within the media and contextualizes their respective media. These machines should be given just as much attention and care as the media itself. Three principles of traditional art and contemporary time-based media art conservation such as intangible value, significance, and replaceability will be explored as to how they can be applied to the conservation of legacy equipment within libraries and archives. Synthesizing these principles with those of current media archiving will demonstrate how legacy playback equipment cannot be divorced from the audiovisual material. Three case studies underscore the value of legacy equipment in libraries and archives. Each of these case studies will be used to analyze different approaches to the conservation of legacy equipment and raise potential solutions for how to best mitigate the two-front fight of obsolescence and degradation.