Ornithology is the scientific term for the study of birds. Cetology and herpetology are the terms for the study of whales and frogs respectively. For nearly every animal in existence, there is a field of research dedicated to learning everything possible about them. Part of furthering human research of other animals involves finding and observing them in the wild. The ability to do the ever-important former can sometimes rest on the ability to identify the organic sounds and various calls of living things.
Such an ability is hard to develop without either constant natural exposure to the living being in question or to exposure on demand via a recorded clip. Knowing how hard it can be to find and regularly access either of these things for research, zoologists everywhere can celebrate and study a little easier because the Macaulay Library at Cornell University has just finished digitizing and transferring the world’s most extensive natural sound archive onto the web.
Announced in a university-run blog post late last week, this archive contains audio clips from wildlife across the spectrum, with a particular highlight on bird sounds. Sound clips go back as far as 1929, making it the “oldest in the world” according to the library’s director, Michael Webster.
When it comes to the technical specifications of the data at Cornell’s disposal, to give some perspective on exactly how many sounds there are to be heard, the collection take up roughly 10 terabytes of hard drive space. 9,000 species and 7,513 hours played from end to end.
Since the average individual is not liable to be found digging through a nature archive and researching the biological habits of animals, this news might seem out of touch or irrelevant to the general public. Food for thought though: in addition to research driven use, the library also states that “the recordings are also used in museum exhibits, movies and commercial products such as smartphone apps.”
Yes, even the sound effects for something you freely downloaded on your Android or iPhone may be enhanced by sounds originally gathered for the sake of scientific advancement –and although the sounds of Angry Birds probably won’t be added to the archives– the audio curator of the collection, Greg Budney, does think pure exploration of the clips can be “plain fun to listen to.”
Going forward, the archive is aiming to keep expanding the amount of content available via both professional and amateur recordists from anywhere in the world, hopefully soon adding upload features that will bring international access to a sound recorded from halfway across the world! Imagine the travel costs researchers could save trying to obtain clips first hand when a colleague already in the country at hand can simply do it for them. It could become like a high-end, professional wiki.
Below is just one of the 150,000 clips. The oldest from the collection!
ML Audio 16737
Song Sparrow Melospiza Melodia
Allen, Arthur
United States, New York, Tomkins County, Ithaca, Stewart Park
18 May 1929
Macaulay Library, www.MacaulayLibrary.org
Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1
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