• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Ransom Center Magazine

  • Sections
    • Art
    • Books + Manuscripts
    • Conservation
    • Exhibitions + Events
    • Film
    • Literature
    • Photography
    • Research + Teaching
    • Theatre + Performing Arts
  • Archive
  • Print Edition

patrons

National Endowment for the Humanities awards grant to preserve and enhance access to sound recordings

March 24, 2015 - Jennifer Tisdale

Audio cassette and video cassette tapes from the Spalding Gray archive. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded the Ransom Center a $18,900 grant to preserve and enhance access to the Ransom Center’s non-commercial sound recordings. The grant allows the Ransom Center to complete a preservation survey of more than 13,000 archival sound recordings to establish and document preservation digitization priorities, processes, and standards to enhance access to these research materials.

“To make the most prudent and productive use of resources available, the Ransom Center must understand the condition of its sound recordings, as well as their intellectual and research value, in order to make preservation decisions based on clear principles that will expand current and inform future reformatting, stabilizing, and cataloging efforts,” said Ransom Center Director Steve Enniss. “This support from the NEH is powerful validation of the Center’s efforts.”

A majority of the recordings are unique and were made for private, non-commercial use. The content varies widely but includes literary spoken word, conference proceedings, dictated notes and letters, field recordings, structured interviews, lectures and readings, musical performances, radio broadcasts, rehearsals, telephone conversations, dictated drafts of writings, and even therapy sessions and psychic readings.

Recordings in the collection belong to some of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century’s most notable writers, artists, and performers including Stella Adler, Neal Cassady, Andre Dubus, David Douglas Duncan, Norman Bel Geddes, Spalding Gray, Denis Johnson, Ernest Lehman, Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Gerard Malanga, David Mamet, Nicholas Ray, Ross Russell, David and Jeffrey Selznick, Anne Sexton, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Warren Skaaren, Ted Spagna, Gloria Swanson, and Leon Uris.

Of the more than 13,000 audio recordings cataloged in the Ransom Center’s Sound Recordings Collection database, 2,700 have been digitized and are available for streaming onsite in the Center’s Reading and Viewing Room.

A long-term goal is to place the Sound Recordings Collection database on the Ransom Center’s website, providing patrons access to existing sound recordings.

“In the 50 years since NEH’s founding, the Endowment has supported excellence in the humanities by funding far-reaching research, preservation projects and public programs,” said NEH Chairman William Adams. “The grants continue that tradition, making valuable humanities collections, exhibitions, documentaries, and educational resources available to communities across the country.”

Upon completion, the project will serve as a model for a follow-up project to survey the Ransom Center’s archival moving image materials.

Click on thumbnails to view larger images.

Eric Cartier, a graduate student in the School of Information, works with an audio reel of William Faulkner reading his own short story "The Bear." Photo by Pete Smith.
Eric Cartier, a graduate student in the School of Information, works with an audio reel of William Faulkner reading his own short story “The Bear.” Photo by Pete Smith.
Audio cassette and video cassette tapes from the Spalding Gray archive. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.
Audio cassette and video cassette tapes from the Spalding Gray archive. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

Filed Under: Digital Collections, Research + Teaching Tagged With: access, audio, collections, grant, National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH, patrons, preservation, Reading and Viewing Room, recordings, Research, sound recordings

Increased access to collections with new Saturday hours for Reading and Viewing Room

March 23, 2015 - Jennifer Tisdale

Reading and Viewing Room.
Reading and Viewing Room. Photo by Anthony Maddaloni.

Beginning Saturday, April 4, the Ransom Center increases its Saturday operating hours for its Reading and Viewing Room and will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The times are an increase from the Center’s prior Saturday hours of 9 a.m. to noon.

The Ransom Center’s Reading and Viewing Room is an active place, facilitating the scholarly inquiry of researchers. In the past year, researchers from 46 states and 30 countries worked in the Reading and Viewing Room.

Patrons from Austin and Texas will benefit from the increased hours as will other researchers, including many of the Ransom Center’s fellowship recipients, 49 percent of whom travel from abroad to conduct research here.

The increased hours will provide additional opportunities for onsite use of the Center’s collections of manuscripts, rare books, photographs, and other materials.

Information about using the collections, including establishing a research account, can be found online.

Filed Under: Research + Teaching Tagged With: collections, patrons, Reading and Viewing Room, Research, research account

Primary Sidebar

Archive

Tags

acquisition Alice's Adventures in Wonderland archive archives Art Books Cataloging Conservation Council on Library and Information Resources David Foster Wallace David O. Selznick digitization exhibition Exhibitions Fellows Find Fellowships Film Frank Reaugh Frank Reaugh: Landscapes of Texas and the American West Gabriel Garcia Marquez Gabriel Garcia Marquez archive Gone with the Wind I have seen the Future: Norman Bel Geddes Designs America Lewis Carroll literature Magnum Photos Manuscripts Meet the Staff Nobel Prize Norman Bel Geddes Norman Mailer Performing Arts Photography poetry preservation Publishing Research Robert De Niro Shakespeare theater The King James Bible: Its History and Influence The Making of Gone With The Wind Undergraduate What is Research? World War I

Recent Posts

  • Fellowships Awarded to 52 Scholars
  • Winners Announced for 2023 Schuchard Prize
  • BOOK EXCERPT: Designs on Film
  • Lois Kim Appointed Chief Development Officer for the Harry Ransom Center
  • The Knickerbocker Theatre Collapse

Before Footer

Sign up for eNews

Our monthly newsletter highlights news, exhibitions, and programs.

Connect With Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

About

Ransom Center Magazine is an online and print publication sharing stories and news about the Harry Ransom Center, its collections, and the creative community surrounding it.

Copyright © 2023 Harry Ransom Center

Web Accessibility · Web Privacy