Inventorying Senator Byrd’s AV Collection: Part II

By Jody Brumage
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Followers of the “Posts from the Archives” blog series will recall a post from this past February describing our project to inventory Senator Byrd’s Audio/Visual (AV) Collection in preparation for digitization. At the time, we had just started digging into the boxes and sorting the materials by media type. Now, several months later, we’ve made significant progress on this endeavor, though we are still making exciting new discoveries.

A shelf containing hundreds of compact cassette tapes to be inventoried.

CLS Intern Dylan Rosenlieb completed the initial inventory of over 1,400 VHS cassettes this past spring. For each tape, we collected information including title, type of media, run-time, and any supplemental records found with the AV materials. Now we have started inventorying the more rarer types of media which will require off-site digitization through specialized vendors. These include reel-to-reel tapes, broadcast videocassettes, Betamax cassettes, and other film-based cassettes. We also have hundreds of compact cassettes to be inventoried, but these will be digitized in-house along with our VHS cassettes.

Broadcast tapes are arranged in chronological order before being inventoried and rehoused in temporary boxes.

At the present, we are working through the broadcast videocassettes which include a number of Senator Byrd’s appearances on nationwide news programs such as “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation,” and “Today.” The footage contained on these AV records will offer a view of Senator Byrd’s very public role as Senate Majority Leader as he shared his opinions on topics of national and international importance with the media during the 1980's. These records also include more personal events, such as Senator and Mrs. Byrd’s 50th Wedding Anniversary which was celebrated with a large reception at the Library of Congress’ Jefferson Building in 1987.
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Over the next few weeks, we will be wrapping up our inventorying of these important records in Senator Byrd’s Collection. Using the information collected in this process, we will begin to examine the best options for migrating these analog files to digital formats for better access and long-term preservation.