The Library's audio holdings are comprised of a diverse collection of oral histories, interviews, speeches, programming, commercials, news and other special events. Housed at the Library are thousands of recordings in a variety of formats, from early radio transcription discs to CDs of award winning radio commercials.

Highlights of the Library's audio holdings include nearly 1000 oral histories, interviews, and speeches (most of which have transcripts) with such notables as Judith Waller, William Paley, Himan Brown, Mary Tyler Moore, Minnie Pearl, Edgar Bergen, Betty White, Dorothy Fuldheim, Norman Corwin, Ruth Crane Schaefer, Leonard Goldenson and Lowell Thomas.

The Library also maintains the Westinghouse News Collection (1958-1982), which consists mainly of raw feeds from the Washington bureau. Also included in the "news" category is the Associated Press Radio Competition Collection (1967-1968), which contains a large sampling of radio journalism, almost exclusively from California. The Library houses 5000 transcription discs, including over 10,000 commercials in the Radio Advertising Bureau Collection, programming dating from 1925, V-Discs, and news reports.

The Donald H. Kirkley collection contains political speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill (among them his famous "Iron Curtain" speech), as well as a large run of the Columbia Workshop and other programs.

Over 160 recordings of congressional hearings, political speeches and other media events of the 1960's and 70's are included in the Daniel Brechner Collection. The Chester Coleman Collection is comprised of convention sessions and meetings of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the National Radio Brokers Association (NRBA) from the 70's and 80's as well as radio format and production music demonstrations and promotions of the same period. The "Talk Radio" genre is represented at the Library in The Center for Media and Public Affairs Collection, which includes over 220 programs of the controversial "The Rush Limbaugh Program" (10/95 - 11/96).

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Sound Bites:

Audio Collections:

• Oral Histories
• Radio Advertising Bureau Collection
• BMI Program Clinic Collection
• The Donald H. Kirkley, Jr. Collection
• The Daniel Brechner Collection
• Center for Media and Public Affairs Collection
• The Chester Coleman Collection
• Westinghouse/Group W Washington Bureau Collections
• Associated Press Radio Competition Collection

Audio Collections by Category:

• Advertising
• Historical
• Music
• News
• Programming
• US Government Sponsored Programming
• Uncatalogued Materials