Thousands of Black Gospel Records Saved from Obscurity

For the last dozen years, in the basement of a university library in Waco, Texas, a small team of audio engineers has been busy trying to save black gospel music.

An engineer delicately removes a scuffed vinyl record from its tattered sleeve. He then cleans the disc and drops the needle on the turntable. Exhilarating music rises, filling the small room with voices not heard in half a century. Once the song has come to an end, the audio file is loaded into a digital archive at Baylor University.

In 2005, Robert Darden, a journalism ...