boyle

For my semester project, I propose a digital audio/archival web site initiative, which relates to my professional interests in archival management. During my part-time work at the American University Archives and Special Collections, I have been cataloging the John R. Hickman Collection, which includes thousands of hours of radio programming from the 1920s through the 1970s. The programming includes major news events, such as D-Day and the funeral of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and entertainment, including musical performances and classic radio series like Gunsmoke and The Lone Ranger. Hickman, an on-air personality and producer at what is now WAMU, donated these materials to American and the majority of the collection is housed on seven and fifteen-inch audio reels. Currently, the collection may only be played on twenty to forty year old audio equipment, such as Otari or NAGRA reel-to-reel machines, making it almost completely inaccessible to researchers.

To share this collection with a wider audience, including historians and radio programming enthusiasts amongst the general public, Archives and Special Collections ultimately intends to digitize the content and I propose to kick start this major effort. I plan to digitize approximately ten hours of content which will be accessible through a prototype WRLC (Washington Research Library Consortium) special collections web site. In order to complete my project, I am working with a number of different groups within the American University community in both coordinator and participant roles. I am already working with the American University Audio Technology department to use their reel-to-reel equipment (NAGRA) and Mac software to digitize select reels from the collection. (My first lesson went quite well!) I plan to create a high quality master file of the audio programming and convert it to MP3 or WAV format to stream online. I have selected some of the best examples of the collection to digitize, including news coverage from key historic events, and vintage entertainment programming. I am also working with WRLC to create an online repository for the collection. WRLC prefers to use Greenstone Digital Library software to build its digital archives and my project must conform to these standards. However, I have flexibility regarding the way the site is built and content presented online. For example, I will be setting the parameters for search and browse capabilities.

In terms of design, I am keeping the historian’s needs foremost and plan to create a written methodology to accompany my online project, describing the site’s structure and how it (hopefully) encourages online historical research. The front page will include a banner image of reels in the collection and an overview of the collection. Users will be able to browse by selecting news or entertainment programming and then by choosing title, date, and subject of programming. They will be able to search news, entertainment programming or both by key words. I plan to include a biography of John Hickman connected via a link to the main page as well. Each of the reels will have its own individual web page listing Dublin Core elements about each reel, such as its subject, date of program on the reel, format, etc. For the reels that have been digitized, there also will be a link to the streaming audio. As my project also is a trial run for eventually digitizing more of the collection, I am seeking permission from the American University library’s IT department to house my prototype site on the library’s test server.

For me this project exemplifies several class discussions this semester. As I’ve been working with the physical Hickman collection for several months, this project is a natural progression into the digital realm. It also shares an important collection that is currently inaccessible to researchers (and, for some of the reels, in potential danger of falling apart) with a larger audience by digitizing the content and placing it in a formal web site. This type of archival site also spans both academic and public history since vintage radio programming often is used by social or cultural historians in their primary research, but simultaneously appeals to members of the general public with an interest in classic radio. Finally, since this is a project also related to my ongoing job, I ultimately hope to expand the digitization efforts and the web site during the summer months.

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