[78-L] Stehl, Lufsky and Pinto

[Walter Hermans]

Dear Mr. Vander Lugt,

I apologize for taking up your time, but as you will notice from the description following hereafter I am not at all familiar with using ‘sound archives’.

I also noticed that you are a researcher/cataloger at the Library of Congress in the US. Given the fact that the British Library (BL) section ‘Audio Archives’ could not provide me with an orienting answer to the following request, here it goes.

At the Bancroft library (BUC) of the University of California I read that the ‘Orthological Institute’ (OI), (1927-1957) in England, UK, fully owned then by Mr. C. K. Ogden (1889-March 20, 1957) -the inventor of “BASIC English”!-  had produced the astonishing, amazing amount of 2500 recordings for the OI. (At the BL I have found 5 recordings plus 2 recordings of “Anna Livia Plurabelle”, (ALP) authored by James Joyce, the writer of Ulysses. 

The Bancroft library at this time is closed due to Covid and there can currently, and probably for quite some time to come, not be performed a research by me, and nor by any staff member. This riddle thus cannot be resolved soon and I must admit that I am curious, to say the least!

Using as information ALP and OI I have found as the address of the producer of the ALP audiodisc: Hayes and ‘The Gramophone Co’ (later EMI with a  brand HMV) located at Blythe road, Middlesex, England, UK, but I could not make further inquiries there since I believe that EMI is out of business since 1970 and I was unable to follow up through a successor (if there is still one actually in business.
To your knowledge, is there currently a company that can help me out, please?

Another information that I was able to come up with is the existence of the ‘British Institute of Recorded Sound’ (BIRS) about which you wrote a blog article “An INDEX to ... “ mentioning their ‘Bulletin’ and ‘Recorded Sound’, 1956-1984. I did not find any mention of the OI-recordings in your article. At the BUC though there is a mentioning of a “Winter 1956“-edition which short description, however, did not refer to Mr. Charles Kay Ogden’s ‘OI’. So I am stuck!

I would truly greatly appreciate it if you could guide me how to solve this enigma of “5 vs 2500”. It can hardly constitute a typographical error in my view, although I cannot exclude such a possibility.

Thank you so very much for your attention for my request. I eagerly look forward to your guidance!

Have a great day!

Kind regards,

Walter Hermans

An independent researcher (A retired teacher)

Sent from my iPhone