With over 300,000 recordings on tape, disc, cylinder, and piano roll, the Historical Music Recordings Collection is both the depository for University of Texas at Austin recordings and those of select orchestras, radio stations, national and international arts organizations. Named collections within the HMRC include: Irving Feld Radio Dramas; UT Radio House Transcription Discs; Mary Henrietta Chase Collection of Bing Crosby Lacquer Discs; KUT open-reel tape; Longhorn Radio Network open-reel tape; KMFA "20th century Romantics"; Austin Symphony Orchestra; Houston Symphony Orchestra; HMRC-CDs; 16-inch transcription discs (general collection).
Content types:
Performed music, Sounds (Other than music & language), and Spoken word
Formats:
Pressed LP disc, Pressed 78rpm disc, Pressed 45rpm disc, Lacquer disc, Optical disc (including CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, VCD), Metal disc, LaserDisc, Cylinder, Analog audiocassette, Digital compact cassette, Digital Audio Tape (DAT), Polyester open reel tape, Acetate open reel tape, Motion picture film, VHS (including SVHS and VHS-C), Betamax, U-matic (including U-matic S), Text document, and Piano rolls
Extent:
300,000 items
Repository/Collector:
The University of Texas at Austin, Fine Arts Library
The Arthur B. Church KMBC Radio Collection contains multiple episodes of The Brush Creek Follies featuring the Rhythm Riders, Oklahoma Wranglers, and Midland Minstrels. Most of the collection is related to the events of WWII, FDR, and Harry Truman, D-Day invasion coverage, reports on the signing of treaties, the dropping of the atomic bomb, coverage of the activities of President Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Other highlights include broadcast about the Cold War, Harry Truman's speeches to a multitude of different groups, events at the White House, some of Roosevelt's fireside chats, national news coverage, film footage of KMBC's dedication as well as a segment of the Microphone Personalities, recordings of Pun and Punishment (9/22/60), coverage of Truman and Churchill at Fulton, MO, Churchill's famed "Iron Curtain" speech, recordings of the Texas Rangers. Also included are W.S. Hedge interviews Arthur B. Clarke (6/22/66), KMBC's 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (3/24//48), Church's last KMBC broadcast (1/15/51).
Content types:
Performed music, Sounds (Other than music & language), Spoken word, and Two-dimensional moving image
Formats:
Pressed LP disc, Lacquer disc, Metal disc, and Motion picture film
1000 off-air recordings of local and network radio, Menlo Park, CA from 1937 to 1949, made with home recording machine to make aluminum, lacquer discs of broadcasts, mostly war-related news & commentary
The Packard collection includes approximately 2,500 discs created, produced, commissioned, or collected by Frederick C. Packard, Jr., during the years 1933-1963. The collection forms part of the Woodberry Poetry Room. While it does not contain a complete inventory of his work, the collection features substantial numbers of discs from all stages of the recording and production process, and constitutes the single-largest aggregate of his recordings of spoken literature. In addition to the discs he created for publication, the materials include rare outtakes; original recordings never reproduced or intended for commercial release; Harvard-related language lessons, lectures, sermons, theatrical, radio, and musical performances; and the voices of Harvard students and professors recorded in his role as Professor of Public Speaking. The collection also features listening copies that Packard (and Woodberry Poetry Room curator John Lincoln Sweeney) created based on exchanges he arranged with the Library of Congress, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Radio Éireann.
Content types:
Performed music and Spoken word
Formats:
Lacquer disc, Pressed LP disc, and Metal disc
Extent:
30 linear feet (90 boxes of discs, 17 boxes of original sleeves, and additional ephemera)