by Jim Shanahan, Dean of the Media School, Indiana University  and Paul Mahern, Record Producer, Mixing and Mastering Engineer edited by Mike Casey, Director of Technical Operations, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University The archival recordings digitally preserved by the MDPI project have many potential uses.  In this post, we highlight their ability to inform… Read more »

By Brenda Nelson-Strauss, Head of Collections, Archives of African American Music and Culture, Indiana University Black-oriented radio has long been one of the most popular topics of research at IU’s Archives of African American Music and Culture, but within the AAAMC’s black radio collections there were only a few brief mentions of activity within the… Read more »

by Dan Figurelli and Melissa Widzinski, Audio Preservation Engineers, Media Digitization and Preservation Initiative, Indiana University In 1892 or 1893, Army surgeon and amateur anthropologist Washington Matthews recorded his first cylinders while working with the Navajo people in New Mexico. Matthews was already well-established as a researcher of native American traditions when he was deliberately… Read more »

by Julie Hardesty, Metadata Analyst, Digital Collection Services, Indiana University Libraries Welcome to the second post in our series about MDPI and metadata! Last time we discussed the overall sources of metadata for MDPI items and the topics we would cover more in-depth later in this series. Today’s post will cover metadata used to track… Read more »

by Robert K. Schoon, Communications Specialist, Office of the Vice President for Information Technology, Indiana University At 16, he conned his way onstage in Ireland by pretending to be a cigar-smoking Theater Guild actor on vacation. He debuted on Broadway at 19, and co-founded his own experimental theater company soon after, which he then took… Read more »

by Ronda L. Sewald, Archivist, Indiana University Black Film Center/Archive Obsolescent media generally proves to be an unpleasant obstacle when working with archival patrons. The professional equipment needed for playing back VHS, let alone formats such as open reel video, has become next to impossible for individual archives to obtain and keep operational. In addition, the… Read more »

by John Dunn, Assistant Dean for Library Technologies, Indiana University Libraries While MDPI is well on its way to digitally preserving IU’s significant audiovisual collections, access is an equally important, and equally challenging, goal of the initiative. There are many dimensions to online digital access—rights, policies, description, discovery—but before any of these come into play,… Read more »

by Julie Hardesty, Metadata Analyst, Digital Collection Services, Indiana University Libraries MDPI’s charge to digitally preserve and provide access to all significant audio and video recordings on all IU campuses by IU’s Bicentennial in 2020 is only possible with metadata. Metadata, or the information accompanying the audio and video recordings, allows us to know basic… Read more »