Alternative Preservation Networks: Profiling the Old Time Radio Researchers Group

Abstract

While work on radio preservation in archival scholarship has focused predominantly on projects and strategies in formal library and archiving institutions, private collectors have also developed longstanding preservation networks and protocols that operate outside of professional LIS institutions. The Old Time Radio Researchers is an all-volunteer, nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of the “Golden Age of Radio” from 1930 – 1950. Founded in 2003, the OTTR Group has located recordings of over 60,000 extant network radio broadcast to date, along with related print, graphical, and Internet resources, and makes digitized copies of these materials freely available to the public through its online archive at http://otrr.org. In this interview, Sammy Jones, who compiles metadata on holdings of private collectors as a Program Network Director for the Radio Preservation Task Force of the Library of Congress’s National Recording Preservation Board, talks with Paul Kornman, Director of the Old Time Radio Researchers, about OTRR’s collecting and metadata practices.

Keywords:

• Old time radio
• broadcasting history
• metadata
• digitization
• preservation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sammy Jones

Sammy Jones is a writer/producer for CNN’s Headline News in Atlanta. He is the winner of multiple regional Emmy Awards, an AP Award, and the Parley E. Baer Award for supporting the preservation and enjoyment of radio history. Sammy holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism degree from the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. He is a Network Director with the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF) and has served on the Nominating Committee for the Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), where he is a member. He is also a member of the Society for the Preservation of Radio, Drama, Variety, and Comedy (SPERDVAC). He devotes his spare time to collecting and preserving original radio transcription disks and tapes from the OTR era (roughly 1920 – 1962).

Paul Kornman

Paul Kornman is director of the Old-Time Radio Researchers (OTRR), a volunteer, nonprofit organization dedicated to preservation and study of the Golden Age of Radio (roughly 1935–1955). The group maintains a library of over 60,000 episodes, freely available to the public (otrrlibrary.org), and an online encyclopedia of all things OTR-related (otrrpedia.net). Paul holds a Bachelor of Science and Engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania and dual Master’s degrees from University of Hartford in Secondary Education and Educational Technology. Professionally, he worked as a math teacher in a large suburban high school for several years and currently develops eLearning materials for the academic, pharmaceutical, aerospace, and plastics industries.