Announcement of national conference for the Radio Preservation Task Force of the Library of Congress, February 25-27, 2016.
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Author Archive
Conference Announcement: Saving America’s Radio Heritage at the Library of Congress
“Something Into Nothing”: On the Materiality of the Broadcast Archive
Laura LaPlaca writes about the material resilience of broadcast history from the perspective of a collector and archivist, discussing the importance of acknowledging the stuff that radio and television leave behind, especially in the face of an overwhelming emphasis on the "ephemerality" of these media.
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Audiovisual Archives and the Context Conundrum
Stephanie Sapienza, Project Manager at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH), advocates for why the audio and paper materials of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB)'s radio collection - housed at the University of Maryland and the University of Wisconsin-Madison - need to be integrated online to maximize their usefulness...
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Pacifica Radio’s From the Vault
Brian DeShazor discusses the origins of Pacifica Radio and the archival radio series, "From the Vault." The Pacifica Radio Archives was established in 1971 to house a collection of over 60,000 reel-to-reel tapes, representing the last half of the 20th century as experienced and reported on by Pacifica Radio.
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Teaching Radio’s History
Bruce Lenthall discusses the challenges and opportunities of teaching radio history to a generation of students for whom even the metaphors we often use to think about radio's early history no longer resonate.
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Saving College Radio
Laura Schnitker writes about the importance of saving college radio archives, as college stations have the built-in resources to both save their materials and provide public access to them.
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A Turn Toward the Ruins of Radio History
Peter Schaefer writes about the public face of radio preservation, making a case for acknowledging what's been lost to the ages while simultaneously showcasing what's been found.
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You Ever Hear of a Girl Detective?: Negotiating Gender and Authority in Candy Matson
How did post-World War II female detectives balance authority and femininity on the radio? Catherine Martin writes about knowledge of urban geography as the source of a detective's power in "Candy Matson."
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American Idols: ‘Roxy,’ Major Bowes, and Early Radio Stardom
Ross Melnick provides historical context necessary to understand the prevalence of talent programs on contemporary American network television.
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Edgar Dale, Educational Radio, and Sensory Learning
What makes technology educational? Brian Gregory prompts this inquiry in his consideration of how Edgar Dale's ideas about sensory learning fit into the history of educational radio and ed tech.
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The Formation of a Bootleg Radio Fan Culture
Eleanor Patterson explores the history of hobbyists who collected and traded recordings of classic radio programs in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, considering the cultural significance of a US bootleg radio culture.
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Crumbsucking the FM Dial
Broadcasters are paying top-dollar for the last useable scraps of the FM spectrum. John Anderson explores the booming market in translator stations and their implications for diversity on the dial.
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“Hollywood Goes to Harlem”: Radio’s Creation of an African-American Film Star
75 years ago, African-American radio actor Eddie Anderson parlayed his “Rochester” role into intermedia stardom in film and popular culture.
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‘Real People, Real Radio’: KXCI community radio in the aftermath of January 8, 2011
In the aftermath of the gun violence of January 2011, Tucson’s KXCI community radio responded with music and locally-produced pubic affairs podcasts. The University of Arizona's Mary Beth Haralovich explores how KXCI’s “real people, real radio” format helped people to grieve and to heal.
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Poetry by Radio: Paul Blackburn and WBAI
The New York poet Paul Blackburn’s tape collection documents his involvement with Pacifica station WBAI as a radio producer and a radio listener.
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