Unlocking Sound Stories: Preserving and Accessing the Harry Ransom Center's Audio Collections

FAIN: PW-259130-18

University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)
Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa (Project Director: July 2017 to January 2022)

The digitization and preservation of 2,862 sound recordings in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The selected recordings focus on unique interviews with noted public figures, with particular emphasis on 20th-century literary and public figures such as Julia Alvarez, Ben Bradlee, Norman Mailer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, David O. Selznick, Anne Sexton, Gloria Swanson, William Faulkner, and others.

The Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin requests $207,459 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support an implementation project to preserve and provide access to 2,862 rare and endangered sound recordings and to make their digitized contents available to researchers and the public at large.The collections identified for this project are especially significant because of the breadth of subject areas addressed by their creators, ensuring that the sound recordings will be a rich source of new information for scholars across the humanities. They reveal and preserve the work of Julia Alvarez, Ben Bradlee, Erle Stanley Gardner, Norman Mailer, Anne Sexton, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Arnold Newman, David Douglas Duncan, Ian McEwan, Truman Capote, T.S. Elliott, Paul Bowles, John Beecher, Ross Russell, Norman Bel Geddes, David O. Selznick, Anne Sexton, Gloria Swanson, John Fowles, and William Faulkner, among others.

Media Coverage

Take Your Mind on an Adventure (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Faith Singer-Villalobos
Publication: Texas Advanced Computing Center
Date: 7/17/2020
Abstract: Harry Ransom Center entrusts TACC with the preservation of digital collections.
URL: https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/-/take-your-mind-on-an-adventure

Associated Products

Preserving fragile phonographs of T. S. Eliot, Paul Bowles, Norman Bel Geddes, and others (Article)
Title: Preserving fragile phonographs of T. S. Eliot, Paul Bowles, Norman Bel Geddes, and others
Author: Chloe Gise
Abstract: The author describes the process of designing and creating protective enclosures for 30 broken or fragile phonodiscs that were included in the grant project.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2020/08/13/preserving-fragile-phonographs-of-t-s-eliot-paul-bowles-norman-bel-geddes-and-others/
Access Model: Open
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Ransom Center Magazine
Publisher: Harry Ransom Center

Unlocking Sound Stories (Article)
Title: Unlocking Sound Stories
Author: Katherine Quanz
Abstract: NEH Audio Digitization Project Coordinator Kathryn Quanz chronicles the progress of Unlocking Sound Stories, a NEH grant funded project digitizing and preserving more than 2000 rare recordings.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2020/07/08/unlocking-sound-stories-pt-1/
Access Model: Open
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Ransom Center Magazine
Publisher: Harry Ransom Center

NEH helps to break the sound barrier (Article)
Title: NEH helps to break the sound barrier
Author: Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Abstract: The project PI announces the grant award for the NEH project, providing examples of the range of recordings to be preserved.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2018/04/05/neh_audio_grant/
Access Model: Open
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Ransom Center Magazine
Publisher: Harry Ransom Center

Sound Recordings (Catalog)
Title: Sound Recordings
Author: Lauren Walker
Abstract: Public-facing, searchable database containing all of the sound recordings held in the Harry Ransom Center.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/search/sound/recordings
Catalog Type: Other
Publisher: Harry Ransom Center

How to Search for Sound Recordings (Web Resource)
Title: How to Search for Sound Recordings
Author: Jim Kuhn
Author: Lauren Walker
Abstract: A user guide for Sound Recordings database search techniques.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/guides/HowtoSearchforSoundRecordings

Unlocking voices of the arts and humanities (Blog Post)
Title: Unlocking voices of the arts and humanities
Author: Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Abstract: Due to this NEH-funded project, researchers and the public now have online access to the full catalog describing 14,866 sound recordings held in the Ransom Center’s collections. Descriptive cataloging data for thousands of recordings has been augmented, providing rich detail of their contents. A new Sound Recordings Research Guide provides tips on searching this full corpus of recordings.
Date: 11/12/2020
Primary URL: https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2020/11/12/unlocked-voices-of-the-arts-and-humanities/
Blog Title: Ransom Center Magazine
Website: Ransom Center Magazine

Unlocking voices of the arts and humanities (Article)
Title: Unlocking voices of the arts and humanities
Author: Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa
Abstract: Due to this NEH-funded project, researchers and the public now also have online access to the full catalog describing 14,866 sound recordings held in the Ransom Center’s collections. Descriptive cataloging data for thousands of recordings has been augmented, providing rich detail of their contents. A new Sound Recordings Research Guide provides tips on searching this full corpus of recordings.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2020/11/12/unlocked-voices-of-the-arts-and-humanities/
Access Model: Open
Format: Magazine
Periodical Title: Ransom Center Magazine
Publisher: Harry Ransom Center

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