“If Günter Tembrock had not founded the Animal Sound Archive, then… Do you think that somebody else would?” Karl avoids your question. “It is an honor to digitize his recordings.”

A pause without eye contact. “He was a very likely candidate, a pioneer in his field, a teacher with many devoted students, including myself. I want to make sure that nothing is lost, that his legacy lives on forever.”

Another pause, with eye contact. For a moment you think the conversation ends here, but he continues: “It happens once in a while that archives gets destroyed in wars. Ever heard about the Great Library of Alexandria? It burned down. During the second world war, the German zoos were bombed.”

A crow calls outside the window and he takes a quick look around his office. “These brick walls can fall apart. The wooden shelves can burn down. The magnetic tapes can melt and their coating of ferric oxide can deteriorate in the sticky-shed syndrome.”

“But they are safe now, right, in the online database, on the memory cards?” It is not really a question, you just want to encourage him a little. Is that a smile on his face? You are tired.