Tiger Thompson

In our directed study looking through some of the newspaper articles and pictures found things that intrigued me. For example, the Little Tiger Thompson article is the one I remember the most. He was 8- years-old and the youngest disc jockey.He worked at WEDR and had his own radio show, making 10 dollars a week, I believe. In the article it talks about how at the age of three he was spinning records, and he was able to work the controls and put together his own program. Little Tiger's show was apparently very popular with children and adults as he received countless letters every week. I find Tiger Thompson impressive as at very young age, he was able to speak and articulate in a way that reached a broad audience.

Last Day

Today was our last day at the Birmingham Black Radio Museum, we accomplished so much this semester. We learned to how to organize a collection, create a mission statement and collection development policy, and prepare materials for preservation. We also created metadata and finding aids to locate items in the collection. We had our final meeting with Bob to give him details on what we did and give him a few suggestions of what needs to happen next.This semester went by so fast, and I feel like we just started the project, as we really began to get into a rhythm towards the end. We struggled in the beginning as we tried to organize the collection by radio station, because that's what Bob wanted. However, finally we felt it was better to arrange everything by year and later finding aids could be created to catalog by radio station, or person. I'm really satisfied with what we were able to get done, some days were good days, and some not so productive.I will miss all the people we meet while working there.

Directed Study

We are in our final week for the directed study at the Birmingham Black Radio Museum, and throughout this process I have learned to organize a collection, and prepare it for preservation. I also learned how to create metadata to find specific items in the collection. We respected the fonds as we went through this process. And finally we created a finding aid for the collection. Now that we have reached the end Mr. Friedmann has started asking questions about the organization of everything, and we explained to him that we did not rearrange anything but maintained the order that he had things in. He mentioned a flyer that we had in a particular folder that possibily should be somewhere else, however we have seen that flyer in two seperate places, so it was hard organizing this collection. We have many questions about dates in this collection, that unfortunately due to the time, will possibly have to go unanswered.

Week 9

Time is still ticking but I think we will make it to the finish line. Everything is cataloged in a way that those who come behind us will understand. We are aware that the next crew could decide to go a totally different direction, which is fine, we have come to terms with that. At least we had the opportunity to help with this project and gain valuable experience.We had our pictures taken today by Bob to document what we have been doing, and also so he can show others that the project, his vision, is moving along.There are so many people that want to see this museum happen and hopefully it will. I remember earlier that Lydia and I wanted to do a display of the pictures or sheet music as a final display, but that may not work out for us. We have about seven boxes with folders of pictures, newspapers clippings, and other documents and we have started on the finding aid. We may change how we have it because there is not wireless Internet access at the station for us to check how one looks, or to look at the one we did in our Archives class. I know we will have it ready to go by next trip.

Week 8

So, we(Lydia and I) decided to stop at the 1970s as time is running out in this semester. We have placed the majority of the items in the file cabinet in archival materials, and the record transcriptions are now in archival folders and boxes. We may not get to catalog the transcriptions nor the interview tapes, which we have not even touched. I think we have accomplished much since we began, it seemed overwhelming at first but thankfully we figured it out. Having Dr. Weddle for Archives helped a lot, he taught us in a hands on approach, showing us how to create a finding aid and putting together a collection. So the class prepared us somewhat for this directed study, and this experience was a good one. I still want to work in Archives.

week 7

We have almost made it through the file cabinet, and as predicted we will not finish the project. We mentioned this to Mr. Friedmann this week when he asked about transferring the interview tapes onto more lasting medium. Even though,we will not finish this project maybe there will be more students to help with this. The truth about starting a museum is that it takes time, money and people.

Week 6

Today we continued to catalog the 1950s and 1960s, we realize that a large number of duplicate items are in different folders for various years. Which makes it difficult for us to decipher exactly what goes where in the collection. Some photographs have one date in the picture but on the back a completely different date. Starting a collection from scratch I realize can be time consuming, and frustrating if the materials are not any consistent order.

Directed Study Week 5 Part 2

Not much to talk about today we basically cataloged items from the 1930s up until the 1960s. Mainly pictures, correspondence, postcards and technical documents. As we continue to go through the collection, I think that some items would be a great asset to the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham. I wonder will this project continue after we finish, or if our work will be for nothing.

Directed Study Week 5

When my directed study partner Lydia first started talking about unique identifier, and spreadsheets in the beginning of this whole organizing the collection, it all went over my head. However, today once we started working on the meta data, it actually was not as complicated as I intentionally thought. We had a moment where we realized that Mr. Friedmann's desire to have the collection sectioned by radio station just would not work because of how things are all jumbled. So, as a solution we decided to organize by date, which seems to work fine. I found it interesting how each item has a different code, for instance a photograph from the 1930s would be identified as 0001.0002.000001, which the larger the number the more room it allows the collection to grow. Each set of number representing the year, the item type and the number it is in the collection. I have come to the realization that archives is the way for me, but not just any archive, a photography archive.

Directed Study Week 4 Part 2

Another slow day, we are still archiving the materials to what kind of collection this will be. There loads of papers to go through and some things that need not be in this collection, but the problem is that we believe that the Director of this project will not want to part with any of the material, especially the multiple copies. Only thing Lydia, my partner in this study feel we can do is catalog everything, just make sure everything is protected from further deterioration and create a finding aid for the next crew.

Directed Study Week 4

Today was a slow start, we had to wait for Bob to come in and let us into our workspace. We got started about two hours late but accomplished getting a vast majority of the photographs into protective sleeves, as well as the other materials into to archival folders. Now our main goal is to figure out how to organize the collection. I think a lot of weeding needs to be done to decipher what actually should be considered for the collection, mainly because some of the contents are not relevant to what we are trying to accomplish. But the problem is what does Bob want in the collection, and whether his ideas fit with what this project could or should be.

Directed Study Week 3

Today was a slow day for us at WJLD, so mainly we discussed a possible collection development policy for the museum, to provide focus for the project. I also wrote down a few questions to ask Bob Friedmann, so we can document all the information he knows about black radio, and his vision of what the museum should be. I glad we are doing this project because it gives us valuable hands on experience of the beginnings of a museum archive that we could not get from class alone.

Directed Study Week 2

Today we got in all the materials we needed to preserve the photographs, and Lydia and I talked a bit about doing a display with the various photos in the collection being there are multitudes of 8 by 10 head shots of a variety of radio personalities, contest giveaways, parties and beauty contests. We discussed maybe talking to Bob Friedman about doing a display of the sheet music in his office, which I have experience doing displays, so it would be very exciting for me. I mentioned to Lydia that we could possibly as one of the places to do displays besides at the Hoole Special Collections Library on campus, is maybe the public library in Tuscaloosa, where I worked previously. This library has two large display cases right up front and one that stands alone, so if we requested time to display anything, if any time was available, we could possibly reserve both displays for an entire month. Or even better see if the local libraries or even the museums in Birmingham would allow us to display some of the collection. I think we have multiple options in this aspect. Also learning to write a grant to help raise money to fund this project would be an excellent experience, maybe we will get the chance.

Directed Study

Today we looked through the photographs to place those that are the same together. It is somewhat difficult to since we do not have the materials we need to start preserving them. We decided to work on a unique identifier for the collection as a way to catalog. My partner Lydia is very interested in meta data and I am more interested in organizing the collection for preservation because we still have items we have not even touched and there is a possibility that we will not even get to the actual cataloging. At the moment I'm taking each day as it goes, I like to work to get things done and I hope we will have a least prepared the bulk of the collection for preservation before the semester is over.

Directed Study at WJLD

Today marked day one of searching through all the materials that Bob Friedman has collected over time about the history of black radio. The are a number of photos, correspondence, memorabilia, radio logs, interviews,news clippings, old equipment and the list goes on. The main thing we did today was make a list what was in each folder to gain an idea of what we are working to assist in making the radio station museum a reality. A lot of the photographs we realized need to come out of the folders they are in and be enclosed in more archival materials to preserve them. There are interviews recorded on fragile paper that could easily tear if handled roughly. Basically we have an better idea of what we are dealing with but now we have to figure out how to organize it in a way that the next person that comes after us can pick up and run with it.

Directed Study at Birmingham Radio Museum

I will begin tomorrow a new experience, a directed study at one of the first black radio stations in Birmingham. It is a bit exciting because I have a small clue as to what I'm doing from class work in my Archives class, but other than that not a clue. I love learning new things and I'm up for the challenge, as I do learn better in a hands on setting. Most of the material is in some kind of working order thanks to the station manager Bob Friedman, and he is an asset because he know so much himself, a walking museum. I'm just ready to get started because this is what I'm interested in museums and archives,and I think it will be fun.