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The LAB’s oral history files, which already number more than
1,100 audio tapes, have now undergone a complete revision
to high-definition video. This was the scene as the library
prepared for its first 2010 release. The set is shown, with
murals from the Broadcasting Magazine archives.
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The Library of American Broadcasting (LAB) had its
beginnings within the NAB (1972) and spent its first 22 years
on N Street, Washington, D.C., moving to the University of
Maryland when it outgrew the NAB site in 1994.
It has more than doubled in size and in collections and
is now the preeminent national repository for broadcast
history.
The LAB has evolved
over 38 years to become the
broadcast industry’s home
page, incorporating computerage
technology with
traditional library techniques
to supply the parallel needs
of the broadcast and academic
communities.
The Library has
conducted and transcribed
over 1,100 oral histories
with broadcasters of several
generations, tracing radio
and television to their earliest
days. It has now committed
$100,000 to a new generation
of video histories.
The Library is home to the
NAB’s own archives, for which
it has assumed responsibility
and now maintains in close
association with the NAB staff.
Among the more recent acquisitions are the Broadcasting
Magazine Photo Archives, with more than 225,000
photographs dating from the 1920s to the present,
considered one of the most historically significant elements
of the library.
The depth of LAB collections is indicated by 7,000 books,
more than 6,000 audio tapes, 7,000 pamphlets, 300 periodical
titles, 8,000 recorded discs, 2,000 scripts and a growing
collection of video and film material.
Among individual collections of note: the Arthur Godfrey
Collection; the Robert St. John Collection; the Ray Scherer
Collection; the Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith Collection; the Vox
Pox Collection (one of the first man-on-the-street interview
shows); the NBC Wisdom Collection (representing programs
from 1951–1966) the American Women in Radio and
Television Collection; the Papers of Helen Sioussat, the first
woman to serve with Edward
R. Murrow as a network
news executive; the BMI
Program Clinic Collection;
the Radio Advertising
Bureau Collection, with over
2,000 discs containing radio
commercials from the 1950s
and 1960s; and the Television
Information Office Collection
of videotapes from the 1970s
and 1980s demonstrating
public service broadcasting
on local stations.
The LAB’s board of
directors includes such
prominent broadcasters as
David Kennedy, the former
joint board chairman of the
NAB; James Babb, former
chairman of the NAB’s
Television Board; Gary
Chapman, former president
of LIN Television; Ginny
Morris, former chairman of the NAB’s Radio Board; Larry
Patrick, prominent media broker, and Betty Hudson, longtime
NBC executive now with National Geographic.
Among the Library’s recent innovations: the annual Giants
of Broadcasting honors, now in its eighth year and having
honored 116 honorees; the quarterly AirWaves newsletter; a
new Friends of the Library membership organization and a
resident scholar program (capitalized at $50,000 annually) to
provide broadcasters and others the opportunity for a year’s
research and discovery.