Before 33 rpm LPs and 45 rpm singles, there were the 78 rpm vinyl records, often made from shellac instead of plastic.

Some of these early phonograms are now in a precarious condition.

In order to preserve them for future generations, members of The Great 78 Project are digitising such sound recordings. The results are publicly accessible via a subpage of the Internet archive.

Project members focus on less commercially successful productions that aren't likely to be transferred to newer sound storage media such as long-playing (LP) records or compact discs (CDs).

However, it's not just music enthusiasts who can gain insight on the sound worlds from 1898 to the 1950s through the digital backups; researchers will also be able to tap into the material.

The recordings are stored with surface noise and sound errors, and tens of thousands of discs have already been digitised.