Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives Content Digitization and Accessibility Project, Phase One: Program Books 1888-2011

FAIN: PW-51179-12

TANGLEWOOD (Boston, MA 02115-4557)
Bridget M. Carr (Project Director: July 2011 to December 2013)

The digitization of the concert programs of the Boston Symphony Orchestra covering its full performance history (16,000 concerts) from 1888 to 2011.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra proposes to digitize and make freely accessible via the internet the full performance history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This project will include scanning 235 bound volumes of BSO concert programs (more than 16,000 concerts and 7,500 individual program books) from the years 1888 to 2011. The resulting PDF files will be fully searchable and available both on the Internet Archive site at www.archive.org and on the BSO's website. In order to enhance this offering, the BSO will also link these files to an existing performance history database that will allow researchers to conduct sophisticated queries directing them to the original source material. Queries regarding performance history, and any associated programs and notes, represent one of the BSO Archives's most common areas of research inquiry.