{image1}Brew City goes above and beyond green beer on St. Paddy's Day in celebrating its Irish heritage. In addition to the annual Irish Fest and a slew of pubs there's another tribute unknown to many Milwaukeeans, says Ed Ward founder of Milwaukee Irish Fest.

It's The Ward Irish Music Archives, the largest such collection outside of Ireland, containing more than 40,000 Irish and American Irish musical recordings and artifacts. And From May 2-5, 2007, the Archives will be hosting the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, ARSC, conference here in Milwaukee.

The conference attracts people from around the world and also includes representatives from major institutions such as the Library of Congress, British Library, Canadien National Archives, UCLA, Harvard and many others.

"The interesting aspect about ARSC is that it is not limited to Academics and professionals in the field," says Ward. "Almost half of their members are keen collectors who by their fields of interest have became experts in these particular fields."

The Conference will be held at the Milwaukee Hilton but will also include a reception at the Archives and a trip on Saturday to the famous Victorian Palace in Barrington Hills where there is the largest collection of automatic music machines in the world -- housed inside Illinois largest residence.

"This is a major event for the archives. To have experts from around the world come in and see what we're doing will be greatly gratifying and helpful in building relationships for the future," says Ward.