Jazz Archive Assessment

FAIN: PG-50198-07

California State University, Long Beach Foundation (Long Beach, CA 90840-0004)
Ray Briggs (Project Director: May 2006 to December 2008)

Hiring an archivist to conduct a general preservation assessment of 500,000 sound recordings in a variety of formats, one million still image negatives, and periodicals comprising the collection of the California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz, a state-wide organization headquartered at the university.

In partnership with the Los Angeles Jazz Institute and a grant offered by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the California Institute for the Preservation of Jazz seeks the assistance of a professional archivist to conduct a general preservation assessment of the jazz collection housed on the campus of California State University, Long Beach. The consultant has been specifically identified as Louise Spear (M.A. Library Sciences), former director of the Ethnomusicology Archive at UCLA, and current manager of the Grammy Archive for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. With particular emphasis on the West Coast jazz tradition, the archival collection includes more than 500,000 sound recordings in various formats (78 RPM, LPs, 45 RPM, V-Discs, reel tapes, etc.), over 1 million jazz photographs as negatives, unpublished interviews and oral histories with significant historical figures of jazz, concert programs, and related memorabilia, original scores, and a huge collection of jazz periodicals.