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Purpose - This paper examines the metadata practices of various types of memory institutions digitizing audio documents. Sound cultural heritage is not under the responsibility of any one Czech national memory institution to identify, describe, collect and preserve it, and so its digitization is carried out in different ways in different types of institutions. The theoretical basis of the present research study is the memory practices of G. C. Bowker. Through their perspective, we observe how the societal memory, represented as a digitized sound recording, is stored. Design / methodology / approach - Information on metadata practices was gathered through an online survey and from content analysis of a metadata sample. Four archives, two libraries, one museum, and one research organization participated in the research from a total of 20 contacted relevant institutions. Results - Memory institutions are building their digital collections and holdings based on two different variants of the modern concept of time. These are reflected both in their different missions and in the subsequent application of metadata practices and standards. The deterministic mechanical conception forms the computer memory regime; the transformative conception forms the database memory regime. Standards and rules for describing audio documents are as diverse as the mission of memory institutions, but again, one or the other variant of the concept of time can be identified behind them. Universal among institutions is the desire to preserve provenance information. The preservation of provenance information of the original physical media is widespread, involving in particular identification and basic description; context relating to specific features of the recording is more rarely preserved. The authenticity of digital documents does not receive much attention from memory institutions; the actual process of transformation of a digital document after digitization is unrecorded. Despite the fact that memory institutions digitize holdings primarily for research use, they do not create sufficient conditions for quality digital research. Originality / value - The paper highlights the importance of preserving provenance and contextual information about digitized sound documents, which is central not only to confirm the authenticity of the recording, but also to reconstruct historical events related to music and sound and to the establishment of the sound industry in our country. The paper also opens a perspective on the theory of memory practices that have not been introduced in the Czech environment yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The article focuses on optical data discs in the collections of the two largest Czech libraries and examines how their role has changed in recent decades and what risks they face. It introduces the CDArcha project, which offers tools to protect the content of data optical discs and outlines the steps that need to be taken in the future to ensure that data stored on them remains accessible to library users in the long term. Design/Methodology/Approach – The first part based on the analysis of project documents and other materials explores the situation in the National Library of Czech Republic in the 1990s and at the turn of the 21st century. The second part discusses the situation in the Moravian Library itself and describes the CDArcha project. Results – An outline of measures taken in the past to protect optical discs in the collections of the two largest Czech libraries is presented. In the second section new software tools are introduced; they allow memory institutions to extract data from optical discs and safely store them on a central server to provide protection at the bit level are introduced. Originality/Value – The article provides a summary of the research of the National Library of Czech Republic in the field of optical discs; the topic was long neglected by the professional library community. The CDArcha project, which forms an integral part of the research and development in the Moravian Library, offers tools for libraries and other memory institutions to protect data stored on optical discs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]