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Researchers at the University of Utah are trying to save the sounds of the West, and they're putting these sounds online so everyone can hear them.
Jeff Rice likes frogs. "Just the frogs within the state of Utah. For example, the Canyon Treefrog sounds similar to the bleating of a sheep. On the other end of the coin, you have the Boreal Chorus Frog, which sounds sort of like somebody running their finger over a comb," he said.
Rice is a Research Librarian for the University of Utah Marriott Library, but he spends a lot of time away from the books, knee-deep in mud or climbing mountains to gather animal sounds for the Western Soundscape Archive.
"Sometimes, I'll just trudge out into the field early in the morning and set up my microphones, and you never know what you're going to get," he said.
For instance, Rice once got a recording of an animal that sounded like a kazoo. They're still trying to identify which animal it was. The archive was started when Rice wanted to record all of the sounds Utah animals make.
"Nobody had done it before. It was an interest of mine and I approached the Marriott Library with the idea of doing that, and we expanded it to cover the entire western United States," he said.
In its first year, the archive is already bigger than it was expected to be.
University of Utah Marriott Library Information Technology Services Associate Director Kenning Arlitsch said, "We said we were going to do 600 or so, and we've got more than 800 sound files up already and another 300 or 400 waiting to be posted."
So, why are these sounds being collected? Arlitsch says they might not have much time to collect them because a lot of these sounds are disappearing.
"Visually, environments and landscapes deteriorate as we develop them, or not necessarily deteriorate but are altered. What we don't always grasp, I think, is that the soundscapes in those environments deteriorate as well," he explained.
Many of the sound clips on the archive are donated from other sources. Arlitsch says they've received recording of ants, which produce sounds as they vibrate. The man who sends those recordings has admitted to Arlitsch that he'll sometimes put the ants between his teeth so he can feel the vibration.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
