Denmark has two very large libraries: the royal library in Copenhagen (Det Kongelige Bibliotek) and the national library in Århus (Statsbiblioteket Aarhus). Among other services, the latter offers VHS cassette loans for home use, encompassing all television broadcasts aired in Denmark since 1988.
Among its collections, this library holds approximately 2000 cylinders, including many Blue Amberols and especially Inter format Pathé cylinders. Notable items in this collection include numerous dictation cylinders (such as those of Sarah Bernhardt and Coquelin) and an excellent condition Bettini cylinder of Pope Leo XIII. However, the most incredible element of this cylinder collection is a set of over 300 cylinder molds. It's important to note that black cylinders were mass-produced using copper molds made via various galvanoplastic methods from originals of brown wax.
These cylinder molds at the Nationalbiblioteket are the originals for most of the Danish Pathé production. Apparently, there is no French cylinder mold in this collection. Moreover, it seems that no cylinder molds were saved in France, making this Danish collection a significant element of industrial archaeology, whose careful examination could help understand the detailed production methods of cylinders at Pathé.
The following article in Danish comes from an online publication by Statsbiblioteket:
Statsbiblioteket has acquired an Archéophone - a custom-built phonograph capable of playing all types of phonograph cylinders. The Archéophone will be used to transfer our
approximately 2000 cylinders, containing music and speech, which include recordings by famous artists of the time as well as private recordings of yet unknown content.
The oldest recordings date back to 1888 and the most recent to 1930. The process also includes digitizing the cylinders and preserving them in the digital book tower,
providing rich opportunities to convey these exciting and unique sound examples from a bygone era. The picture shows the Archéophone and its inventor and constructor,
Henri Chamoux, who brought it from Paris to Statsbiblioteket and conducted training sessions on its use for Media and Music staff.
- Elsebeth Kirring