A sound investment in audio treasures

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the sound of a steam locomotive worth? Or an audiotape of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech? Or Woody Guthrie’s original acetate of “This Land Is Your Land”?

For years the answer was apparently “Not much.” The preservation and archiving of increasingly rare sounds and vintage recordings have been shockingly inadequate, threatening to leave a gaping historical void for future generations.

But recently the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress joined forces to address the oversight with an effort called “Save Our Sounds,” the subject of a fine one-hour documentary at 8 tonight on the History Channel.

The program, part of the cable outfit’s Emmy-winning “Save Our History” series, looks at the onerous task of salvaging thousands of fragile wax cylinders, splintered acetate discs and crinkled and crumbling tapes so they can be migrated into digital media and accessed by all on the Internet.

There are interviews with technical and historical experts as well as musicians B.B. King, Pete Seeger and David Crosby. Crosby recalls once being in a clanking old elevator with a pal who insisted on turning out the lights so they could focus on all the classic creaks.

Crosby admits he’s listened to the world a little differently ever since, and you might too after tonight’s program.