[Dtb-talk] A question about preferred book formatting

[Tim Gillett]

Greg wrote:

"Too bad they were not all tone indexed. I dont understand why they would have stopped.
 Even with 2 track you could have done that...." 

 I couldnt agree more, Greg.  But by April 1989 I had left the organisation and so it was out of my hands. 

But equally, tone indexing in those days also required the borrower have a tape player 
with the tone index search feature built in and working properly. For example both the UK 6 track and the NLS 4 track players
 had such an index search feature. 
In my time at ABWA my TA and I worked hard to keep the search feature working 
on the 1300 NLS players as it could be a little unreliable if not checked at service time. Prior to our arrival, nobody bothered
to maintain the tone index feature on the players. I doubt they even knew about it or how to adjust it. 
The adjustment for it actually wasnt even mentioned in the factory service manual. I discovered it for myself.

But of course once the decision was made in the early 90's (after my stint there) to scrap the NLS loan cassette player service to borrowers,
there was no way of knowing what sorts of cassette players borrowers at home were using to play the library tapes. 

How many of such players even had a suitable tone index search facility, and even if by a stroke of luck some of them did, 
who was going to ensure it was maintained in operating condition in each borrower's individual player 
which could be any one of a number of makes and models on the market at that time? 

The impossibility of now providing tone index search for borrowers' tape players probably weakened the imperative
 to provide tone indexing at all on inhouse productions. Why record index tones if many or most borrowers could not use them?

But I'm only speculating. As to exactly why most ABWA titles were not tone indexed, I'm not the right person to ask. It wasnt my call. 

Interestingly though,  we are back full circle to to the question of why the NLS player service was dismantled in Western Australia as it was.
That decision may shed some light on the demise of tone indexing at ABWA.


Regards, Tim

Tim Gillett
Audio/Electronics Technician
Perth, Western Australia