Northwestern University Audiotape Collection

Collection

Identifier: 76/0/1

Staff Only
No requestable containers

Scope and Contents

This miscellaneous collection of audiotapes (on reels, not cassettes) reflects a broad range of the activities of the University, its administrative units, faculty, staff and students. It contains recordings of lectures, performances, presentations, audio guides, training sessions, sound cues, and practically anything else that has an audio component. Although this collection is wide-ranging, it cannot be said to be comprehensive: it contains many individual and valuable items, but does not necessarily contain all parts of any of them. (For example, this collections contains recordings of all or part of several Waa-Mu shows, but does not contain all Waa-Mu shows.)

Dates

1947 - 1999

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on use of the materials in the department for research; all patrons must comply with federal copyright regulations. This collection is stored off-site and requires two business days advance notice for retrieval. Please contact the McCormick Library at specialcollections@northwestern.edu or 847-491-3635 for more information or to schedule an appointment to view the collection.

These recordings may require preservation review and/or digitization prior to access.

Extent

53 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Arrangement

When a group of tapes was believed to form a reasonable group based on its provenance, that group was retained. Other groups were created as similar materials were encountered. For example, groups were created for entities such as lecture series, University departments or activities, and persons. Many tapes are not part of any larger group. The groups of tapes and individual tapes are arranged in a single alphabetical sequence. Arrangement within a group may be either chronological or alphabetical.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was formed from a large number of separate accessions. Information about these is noted in the finding aid when that information is available.

Processing Information

This finding represents in a single alphabetical sequence the contents of two separate collections of audiotapes.

Miscellaneous audiotapes (formerly assigned the identifier 76/0//2), housed in boxes 36-53.

Northwestern University audio tapes (1954-1977), housed in boxes 1-34

Under a practice no longer being followed, the Miscellaneous audiotapes were removed from collections as they were received and processed; most (but not all) of the tapes in this group bear some indication of their origin. (These markings have been preserved in this finding aid.) The Miscellaneous audiotapes were stored at various locations in Deering Library, not always in sequential order. There are two large gaps in the numbering sequence for this group: tapes 369-988 are in a separate collection of university radio audiotapes; tapes 992-1646 are in a collection of tapes related to the Transportation Center.

The Northwestern University audio tapes bear no indication of their source.

The tapes in both of these collections were, at an unknown time, assigned sequential numbers, each begining with 1. There appears to have been no great care expended in the assignment of numbers, as the tapes that constitute distinct units were commonly numbered out of sequence; others were scattered to various non-consecutive locations in the sequence. Gaps in the numbering sequence may represent separate groups of tapes that were pulled out of these groups, and have their own finding aid; others represent tapes that could not be found; still others represent empty tape reels that were assigned sequential numbers.

Both of these collections were at one time listed in spreadsheets. The spreadsheet for the Miscellaneous audiotapes was used as the basis for the description found in this finding aid. This information was supplemented with information found on the boxes, in the tape reels, or incoluded in the boxes. The spreadsheet for the Northwestern University audiotapes could not be located; the descriptions of these items is based on information written on the boxes or reels, or contained in the boxes. In both cases, the information accompanying the tapes has been supplemented as necessary with information discovered in the Daily Northwestern, Chicago tribune, and other parts of the University Libraries collections.