Cassettes: Down But Not Out

These days, cassette users trying to explain their preference for the dinosaur format have got to feel like Djay trying to push his demo on Skinny Black. They’re still popular in other parts of the world–there’s a reason there’s a blog called Awesome Tapes From Africa–but in America they’re pretty much toast. Still, this L.A. Times story, complete with obligatory High Fidelity reference, wants to assure you that the format is hanging in by its fingernails thanks to the blind, audiobook buyers (which we noted last year), archivists, the elderly, folks attempting to convert other people to Christianity, and related “non-traditional” markets:

The Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped has relied on cassettes for its audio books since the early 1970s.

“We have found cassettes to be durable,” said Jane Caulton, the program’s spokeswoman. “They have been cost-efficient. And they have been easy for our customers to use.”

Tapes can carry a Braille label to help blind users determine what’s on them, and that wouldn’t work well on CDs because the label would interfere with the operation of slot-loading players.

The library is preparing to switch to a digital medium for its audio books, but that transition depends on getting Congress to approve funding and won’t be done until 2012 at the earliest.

And all you budding explorers/missionaries/grifters can forget digital media; apparently the iPod is not a good idea if you’re planning on kicking Indiana Jones/Jim Jones-style this summer:

Tapes’ durability is a key selling point for groups doing missionary work because they won’t scratch and aren’t as heat sensitive as CDs. “You can take a cassette player out in the middle of a jungle or desert and it will work,” Stepp said.

Still, no one quoted in the article is predicting the brief spike in cassette nostalgia (I have one I bought from a techno/noise one-woman-band at a show six months ago that I’ve still yet to be able to play) will force a small-scale, vinyl-style comeback. But the president of Lenco-PNC, which has the last cassette-producing assembly line in America, thinks we haven’t seen the last of the format for a little while longer:

“It’s hard to believe we’re going to ever see a product last this long in the industry,” he said.

Reelin’ In The Years [L.A. Times via tipster “1 comment from Ned Raggett”]