The History Department, the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH), and University Archives & Special Collections at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) propose to collaborate with the Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation and National Archives branches in Kansas City and Denver to digitize, describe, and make accessible materials related to the Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School, one of the largest U.S. Indian boarding schools, which was in operation from 1884 to 1934. We will process approximately 10500 pages (or 3368 items) of student case files, admittance forms, correspondence, censuses, administrative and health reports, photographs, artwork, ephemera, artifacts, and a student newspaper held by the National Archives and by the Genoa U.S. Indian School Foundation. Our project will make these hidden records accessible to the families of Indian people who attended the school, researchers who study the Indian boarding schools, and the general public.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum) proposes to digitize folkloric sound recordings created by some of the best-known American folklorists, who worked at the University of Pennsylvania’s Folklore Department in the years 1962-2006. These field recordings document songs and stories common to people in the early and mid-20th century. For the purposes of this application we are proposing the transfer of the recordings clustered in the Caribbean: Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent’s, and Nevis. The recordings are a singular record of folklore and culture in our hemisphere, and are very well documented with text and photographic records. This will make it possible to eventually digitally unite (across media) a body of research of great value to current and future students of folklore, Africana scholars, and many other researchers and music enthusiasts, as well as to people from the places documented.

In 1976, Don Bolles, an investigative journalist for The Arizona Republic, died after a bomb exploded beneath his car in central Phoenix. Many, including Bolles himself, believe that organized criminals were behind the hit. Bolles’s murder has become an infamous mark in Arizona history—a watershed moment which spurred law officers, politicians and the courts into reform. On a national scale, its notoriety called attention to the dangers of Investigative Journalism and reinforced its viability. Forty years later, the bombing is still shrouded in mystery and controversy. The Arizona State Archives is requesting funding to digitize a small portion of tapes from the Bolles Collection that we believe contain valuable information such as police interviews and wiretaps of the case’s most important figures. Their digitization will expand access and provide new information about the criminal activity that spanned many levels of Arizona society during the late twentieth century.

The goal of this project is to digitize and make available all of UM’s recorded holdings. Much of the content exists on reel-to-reel, cassettes, or VHS. These formats are not ideal for research purposes, and the tape quality is degrading. Among the collection is a 1967 recording of a campus concert featuring Spanish composer Luis Benejam’s music, the last performed during his lifetime. Other recordings include interviews with Caldecott Medal winners, radio speeches/talks/lectures given by the station owner from his world travels that were broadcast to central Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s, radio commercial reels featuring local business ads, and the entire collection of VHS recordings of campus lectures, skits, etc. Digitizing UM’s complete holdings enables us to place content online for researchers, the community, and alumni. Interest is especially high as 2017-2019 marks the bicentennial celebrations of both the City of Montevallo and the State of Alabama.

The Kent/Blossom Music Festival (https://www.kent.edu/blossom) is an advanced institute for professional music training operated by Kent State University in conjunction with The Cleveland Orchestra and Blossom Music Center in Northeast Ohio. It offers public performances by distinguished artist faculty and talented musicians from around the world. The program began in 1968, and has acted as a launchpad for many professional musicians, including current members of dozens of well renowned orchestras and noted chamber groups. This proposal focuses on audio recordings of festival performances, addressing specifically the undigitized portion of the remaining reel to reel audio with Sticky Shed Syndrome and unformatted DAT tapes. The project will preserve an important piece of history and also address a serious, known preservation issue within the reel to reel audio recordings. Further, ideas will be outlined in this proposal to increase access and discoverability of the festival recordings.

Lawrence Lipton’s L.A. in the Time of the Beats will reveal many previously unheard interviews and musical performances from the Beat generation and later countercultural movements. For this pilot project, we will digitize 300 hours of original 7" reel-to-reel audio recordings of writer Lawrence Lipton’s 1950s and 1960s interviews with monumental artists like James Baldwin, John Cage, and Langston Hughes; live readings by numerous Beat poets from the "Venice West" scene; and live jazz and poetry experiments with musicians like Dave Brubeck and Buddy Collette. Many of these recordings were made for Lipton’s landmark study of the Beats, The Holy Barbarians (1959), and his study of sexual mores, The Erotic Revolution (1965). We will digitize and catalog 300 hours of these recordings for free online public access via the USC Digital Library and Digital Public Library of America. We will preserve the archival BWF files in the USC Digital Repository.

The BSO Archives Department seeks a $41,923 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources to digitize 310 DATs that correspond to 292 Tanglewood Festival concerts held at the Koussevitzky Music Shed between the years 1992 and 2002. DATs are a high-risk medium and these particular tapes contain the organization’s only audio recordings of concerts taking place in the Koussevitzky Music Shed during that time period. CLIR funding will ensure that the BSO completes the necessary transfer process in a timely manner so that no significant data losses occur and all concert recordings are preserved and made available to the public. Materials produced as part of the project will include WAV, MP3, and CD copies of recordings for archival storage, onsite public use, and individually approved remote access.

Our goal is to preserve and improve access to 281 original audiocassette recordings of historic artists’ lectures given at SAIC: 83 recordings of Stan Brakhage’s classroom lectures (1970 - 1976) and 198 recordings of artists’ lectures from the Visiting Artists Program (VAP) (1984-1996). These rare audio artifacts reveal a deep cross section of artistic thought and practice among some of the most significant artists of the late 20th century. Age and format obsolescence require that the tapes are digitized for preservation and continued use. We will digitize all 281 tapes, creating preservation masters and access files, and updating metadata currently shared in our library catalogs. In keeping with our Core Values as educators, we are committed to making these original recordings as broadly available as possible for teaching, research and inspiration.

Opened in 1975, the Rice University Shepherd School of Music has become one of the most prominent music schools in the country. Faculty and alumni include Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winners, and musicians who have performed at Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, and other world class performing venues.
Thousands of performances by Rice faculty and students have been recorded and collected in multiple formats, with accompanying programs and other documentation. Many of these recordings --- particularly those made on reel-to-reel tape---are on the verge of being lost to media deterioration or technology obsolescence. Our primary goal is to convert these recordings to digital format through the NEDCC. We will preserve these newly digitized audio files through existing digital library preservation strategies and create descriptive metadata for them, ultimately making access versions of these performances available online at the university’s institutional repository so that the public may freely listen to them.

The Roulette Archive Restoration Project supports the preservation, restoration, digitization, and accessibility of thousands of recordings on threatened media of historic avant-garde and experimental music concerts presented at Roulette Intermedium's New York venues since 1978. The project includes analysis and reconciliation of contents, condition assessment, legal and contract research, restoration procedures, digitization, and exploration of viability and benefits of moving the physical and digital contents to New York University's Fales Library and Special Collections, which is consulting on the project. This first phase will focus on 200 analog reel-to-reel tapes made in the 1980s; media in particular jeopardy and requiring special handling. The project also prepares the materials and permissions to insure access to scholars, artists, and the public. Subsequent phases of the project will address PCM-Digital recordings, DAT tapes, native digital, and video formats. There are nearly 4,000 total recordings in the collection.

Ohio University Libraries proposes a 6-month project to effect the digital reformatting of 344 cassette tapes containing 702 author interviews conducted by radio personality Don Swaim. Swaim used these recordings to cut his nationally-syndicated Book Beat program, which aired throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The Libraries have already undertaken the digitization and full transcription of the edited broadcasts and seek to do the same for the source material. Following digitization, access copies will be ingested into already-prepared metadata records in the Libraries’ CONTENTdm instance and masters will be backed up in MetaArchive. Swaim has transferred his copyrights to the Libraries and previously supported a project to provide low-quality streaming copies of the interviews through the extremely popular domain wiredforbooks.org. Together with planned transcription, this multi-faceted access plan emphasizing accessibility, interoperability, enhanced indexing, and digital preservation will ensure the greatest possible continuing impact for this invaluable assemblage of voices.

Special Collections & Archives, Wake Forest University, and repository of the North Carolina Historical Baptist Collection will reformat and digitize approximately 1,500 at-risk and rare open-reel audio recordings belonging to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The open-reel tapes document the American evangelical movement and contain presentations by prominent Southern Baptist pastors and church representatives at a number of evangelical conferences and annual meetings of the Convention. The speakers and programs on the tapes document the denomination’s activities and subjects of discussion, 1957-1980, ranging from Baptist theology to broad cultural and societal issues. This project will result in the long-term preservation digital storage for these tapes, and broad access through the Wake Forest University North Carolina Baptist History Portal currently being developed. Once completed, there will be an active outreach program, focused on demonstrating how historians, researchers, and religious scholars can use these records in their research and teaching.

The goal of the Lowell Thomas Audio Digitization Project is to digitize 174 reel to reel audiotapes in the Lowell Thomas Papers that have been identified as being at risk due to their advanced deterioration and historic significance. The digitization process will preserve the content of the audiotapes and make the content of the tapes more accessible to researchers. Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) will act as the vendor for the project. Lowell Thomas was one of America’s most popular news men from the 1930s through the 1970s. He delivered the news to millions of listeners every evening for forty-six years and became a household name. His news broadcasts document a significant range of 20th century history across the U.S. and the world. However, due to the obsolete format on which the recordings are housed, it is difficult for researchers to gain access to them.

The Notre Dame Sophomore Literary Festival (SLF) brought to campus luminaries in poetry, prose, drama, and criticism, particularly in the event’s early years in the 1960s and ’70s. This project will digitize and transcribe approximately 55 hours of SLF readings and lectures from 1968, 1971, 1972, and 1979; speakers include Tom Stoppard, Allen Ginsberg, and John Barth, among other eminent writers. On open reel ¼” tapes, the unique value of these recordings to literary scholars of this period—for whom spoken word is an essential supplement to printed text—is at great risk of loss due to deterioration and obsolescence. The significance of these recordings is complemented by the University Archives’ Raymond M. Funk, Jr. Papers, which feature correspondence with and photos of the SLF participants. After digitization by the NEDCC, these recordings will be transcribed and publicized in online finding aids, and representative clips will be made available for online listening.

Boston College hosts internationally-known archival collections supporting the study of lrish traditional music; two of these, the James W. Smith Irish Music Collection and Joe Lamont Irish Music Collection, include open-reel tapes of unpublished music representing a classic case of high-value research content inaccessible without digitization and preservation. The 1950s/60s music performances feature some of New York and Boston's most prominent Irish musicians at the time, and the informal nature and setting of the recordings - noncommercial "jam sessions" in public and private spaces - capture uniquely the time and spirit of this evolving musical genre. The recordings are presently inaccessible and at risk of loss, requiring professional attention. This project will treat and transfer 150 tapes; release descriptive metadata online; and publicize the importance of preservation and its value to musicologists, performers of Irish and folk music, and scholars of Irish-American history, cultural anthropology, and folkways of immigrant communities.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) produces 800 repertory performances of 11 plays for 400,000 ticketholders annually. OSF’s Archives is one of the country’s only organization-based theatrical archives and is a full-fledged research center with a wide audiovisual collection readily available for education, research and public programming. Under a Recordings at Risk grant, OSF proposes a 12-month project to digitize 388 recordings of first-person oral histories, interviews, meetings and lectures documenting the history of OSF from its founding in 1935 to present. Facilitating, recording and collecting personal testimony has created a broad yet cohesive collection of oral histories and interviews by founders, artists and innovators, which are documented in an extensive but rapidly deteriorating audiovisual collection. OSF’s Archives’ recordings hold essential insights into the history of theatre in America, America’s appetite for theatre, Shakespeare in performance and the impact the Shakespearean festival tradition has nationally and in individual American communities.

The Wittliff Collections, partnering with the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), will create and preserve digital surrogates of thirty-two ¼-inch open reel audio tapes from the archive of performer, Jerry Jeff Walker. The at-risk tapes contain approximately 25 hours of live and studio recordings dating 1966-1981, and are currently housed in original containers acquired directly from Mr. Walker. Born in New York, Jerry Jeff Walker began his career in the Greenwich Village folk scene. He later settled in Austin and became a driving force behind the progressive country movement of the early 1970s, along with Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and others. The tapes selected for this project span Walker’s early career and include live recordings from coffee shops in New York as well as original recordings from Luckenbach, Houston, and Austin, Texas. Many of these tapes have not been played since they were originally recorded.

The Catskill Regional Folklife and History Archive consists of audio and visual media, including 240 cassette tapes containing oral history interviews with Catskill natives. The tapes have been stored in filing cabinets for decades, and we hope to digitally archive and make this content available online.

Since its original vision by Major L’Enfant as “a great church for national purposes,” granted a charter by Congress in 1893, and its foundation laid in 1907 attended by President Theodore Roosevelt, the Washington National Cathedral has been a place of prayer, reflection, and solace for generations of Americans. This is where history has been made, serving both the revered and everyday individual with its awe-inspiring architecture, prayerful events, stimulating lectures, and extraordinary musical performances. These events have been captured by Cathedral staff for over 90 years on more than a thousand film reels and videotapes starting in the 1930’s. This proposal requests funding to assess and digitize a selected portion of this collection (218 tapes) and to create a long-term plan for preservation and access for the entire collection (>1,000 items). The project will create and outreach plan provide access to scholars, educators, and the public to this collection.

Interlochen Center for the Arts (formerly the National Music Camp) holds a collection of approximately 1,000 broadcast transcription discs of music concerts performed at the Interlochen Bowl by the National High School Orchestra, Band and prominent visiting musicians. The discs date from 1938 to 1955 and contain approximately 500 hours of content. These fragile discs are at-risk and in need of being transferred to the digital domain. Interlochen Public Radio (IPR) will out-source the discs to be digitized by a third party, including the input of any available metadata. Digital copies will be in a high-resolution preservation copy and a low-resolution access copy. Once digitized, the program material will be integrated by IPR into original programming content for broad distribution via traditional broadcast, podcast, and online streaming, while respecting copyright. The audio material will also be made available on campus to researchers and/or alumni who participated in the concerts.

Georgetown University Library proposes to preserve and make available over 600 hours (1,207 open-reel tapes) of public affairs radio programming from 1946-1972. These historic recordings are from the long-running Georgetown University Forum radio program. Program topics such as “European Refugees and Peace,” “Pre-Paid Health Care,” and “The Bill of Rights and Congressional Investigations” are as timely today as they were when originally broadcast. The content of these programs is currently inaccessible due to obsolescence of its analog format and potential for damage, making these unique and powerful recordings at risk of being lost forever. When reformatted and made available, students and scholars will be able to consider today’s issues in a broader historical context, and learn more about student engagement and attitudes over the decades. The entire collection has been arranged and described by archival staff; metadata has been created and will be enhanced for greater discoverability.

This 10-month project will digitize 608 lacquer discs and 76 tapes of the Standard Hour program (1938-1955), the first radio series in the US devoted to symphonic music. The program was broadcast from 1926 to 1955, winning the George Peabody Medal for exceptional contributions to music in America in 1942. These live concerts of the San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland Symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Hollywood Bowl were broadcast throughout the Western US. The collection is a significant primary source for how the orchestras of the period actually played in concert and how cultural programming was received by the general American public. The Standard Hour featured important performers including conductors Pierre Monteux, Leopold Stokowski, and Antal Dorati; violinist Yehudi Menuhin; cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; pianist Robert Casadesus; and singer Jussi Björling. The broadcasts are documented on deteriorating lacquer discs and reel tapes that were produced in very limited quantities.

Chicago Public Media (CPM) has nearly 20,000 audio recordings documenting over 25 years of the Chicago region’s history. These recordings include interviews with former elected officials, music and cultural events, original programming created by WBEZ and other significant historical emblems of our region's past. From the political machinery of Richard Daley to the ascent of Barack Obama, from the founding of the electric blues to the birth of American sketch comedy, CPM has captured pieces of history and stored them as physical archives. This project is a three-year effort to preserve and publish audio recordings. The end result of this initiative will be a thriving home for a wealth of historical, informational and cultural content. Evaluation of impact will be conducted using highly reliable metrics and by soliciting regular user feedback. CPM will monitor the number of institutions that present our archival site as a resource to constituents.

The University of Dayton Libraries proposes the digitization of 840 episodes of The Catholic Hour television talk show. The Catholic Hour was produced by the Archdiocese of Denver from December 1984 to July 2003. Each hour-long episode featured several stories, on topics ranging from priests’ lives, to refugee camps in Africa, to Catholic education in Denver, and more. The show also featured content showcasing speakers of national and international importance, such as Mother Angelica, Mother Teresa, and Pope John Paul II. The eleven-month project will require the digitization of 840 U-matic tapes, with the UD Libraries receiving the converted files (both master and web-accessible) on external storage media. The master files will also be copied onto LTO-7 tapes for additional security. A portion of the digitized content will be made available on the Libraries’ online digital repository, and the rest will be accessible on-site.

The UC Berkeley Ethnic Studies Library (ESL) will reformat and preserve selected at-risk, rare audio recordings (262 tapes; estimated 655 hours; dating ca. 1964-1980) from the H.K. Yuen Social Movement Archive. The entire collection consists of approximately 30,000 hours of audio recordings on reel-to-reel and cassette tapes documenting social activism in the San Francisco Bay Area including events at the UC Berkeley campus, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement. Recordings to be digitized document a broad range of social movements including the Free Speech Movement, the United Farm Workers, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, the Women’s Movement, and more. These recordings, which are currently inaccessible to researchers, are valuable to scholars from a broad array of disciplines and will be added to the Internet Archive where they will be accessible to researchers from around the world.