Orson Welles on the Air: Radio Recordings and Scripts, 1938-1946
“My big inventions were in radio and the theatre. Much more than in movies.” — Orson Welles
“Seeing the original scripts of the Mercury Theatre on the Air programs and the disks that transcribed them was like gazing upon a Rosetta Stone of broadcast radio.” — Paul Heyer
Indiana University proposes to digitize and preserve 324 original sound recordings and accompanying scripts of radio programs produced by Orson Welles and to present the digitized materials in a free web
site with enhanced metadata and contextual essays by leading scholars of Welles’s radio work. Orson
Welles was a major creative force in the American theatrical and media arts of the mid-twentieth century.
Through his work as an actor, director, writer, and producer, he was responsible for some of the era’s most
critically acclaimed innovations not just within a single medium, but in a body of work that spanned film,
live theater, and radio. Through the series known as First Person Singular, Mercury Theatre on the Air,
and Campbell Playhouse in turn, Welles is widely recognized as having raised the bar for radio drama,
pioneering and honing narrative techniques that he would later carry over into his acclaimed film work.
Among other things, he emphasized the value of narration—something at which he excelled—rejecting
the notion that radio drama should simply involve broadcasting the kind of sounds someone might have
heard while watching a stage play. One episode of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, “The War of the
Worlds,” arguably became the most famous (or infamous) broadcast in history, thanks to the panic it’s
alleged to have caused among listeners who mistook its dramatization of H. G. Wells’s story using the
format of radio news for reports of an actual Martian invasion. Although Welles’s radio broadcasts of the
1930s are best known today, he remained active in the medium well into the following decade—during
World War Two, for instance, he produced broadcasts in a variety of formats in support of the war effort.
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The audio materials to be digitized and preserved are held in Indiana University’s Lilly Library, and consist of master, original recordings of numerous episodes of such canonical Welles series as
Mercury Theatre on the Air, Campbell Playhouse, Ceiling Unlimited, Hello Americans, This Is My Best, and various incarnations of the Orson Welles Almanac, including a prospective eight-part series for the
Eversharp Pen Company that was never broadcast. Other highlights include an irreverent spoof of
Macbeth recorded privately during a rehearsal in April 1940; a broadcast made shortly after the attack on
Pearl Harbor, during which Welles was interrupted by a government blackout notice; and the most complete known set of The Doorway to Life, a Peabody Award winning program about the challenges of raising children produced by William Robson and scripted by William Alland and Virginia Mullen—all close collaborators of Welles. Collectively, these discs constitute a unique audio record of the seminal broadcast work of Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre. The project will also digitize related manuscript radio scripts in the collection, whose pages show evidence of Welles’ creative process in their dramatic deletions and seemingly last-minute rewrites. See Appendix A for sample images.
Much of Welles’s success in radio was rooted in aural characteristics that can’t be conveyed very effectively in print: qualities of voice, subtleties of timing, layering of sound effects and music, and so forth. The ability of today’s scholars, students, and general public to understand and appreciate his contributions to radio thus hinges on them having access to audio recordings of the broadcasts themselves.
The materials described above are held in the IU Lilly Library, as part of the Orson Welles manuscripts [1] and are described in the series Radio (scripts), Bound Radio Scripts, and Audio
(recordings on disc). The Welles-related collections at the Lilly Library consist of more than 19,875 items relating to the life and work of Orson Welles, and are of great interest to students, scholars, and the general public. In the past three years ninety researchers have used the Welles manuscripts, with users coming from nineteen states (including twenty-one users from Indiana) and eleven countries, including
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Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
Indiana University also hosted a series of events honoring Orson Welles in the spring of 2015. Orson
Welles: A Centennial Celebration, Symposium and Exhibition was a multi-disciplinary series of events that included a major exhibition at the Lilly Library titled 100 Years of Orson Welles: Master of Stage,
Sound, and Screen, a 12-program film screening series, and a symposium that included 2 keynote addresses and nearly 30 paper presentations attended by eighty-six registrants (44 from outside Indiana, 8 international).
For some years critical attention neglected Welles’s radio work in favor of his other contributions, but that has changed in light of newer scholarship that places his broadcast accomplishments front and center, such as Paul Heyer’s The Medium and the Magician: Orson Welles, the Radio Years, 1934-1952, published in 2005. Work by scholars Neil Verma, Jacob Smith, and Darlene Sadlier has also addressed
Welles’s radio production. (Appendix B includes a bibliography of this and other work based on the
Welles collection.) Despite renewed interest in Welles’s radio innovation, the corpus of recordings available for study and enjoyment has remained incomplete and of dubious quality. A portion of the material we proposed to digitize is already available through other channels, including key Mercury
Theatre and Campbell Playhouse broadcasts, which may be accessed via sites such as Archive.org.
However, the quality of available recordings is uneven and often quite poor, apparently reflecting multiple generations of copying by amateur tape-traders. By contrast, the recordings in the Welles mss. at the Lilly
Library are, in most cases, originals cut directly from the broadcasts as they aired. Moreover, many specific episodes found in this collection of series don’t appear to survive anywhere else. Of the Orson
Welles Show of 1941-42, for example, Wikipedia states: “Nineteen broadcasts were produced; only eight shows have survived.” In fact, the Welles mss. contains fourteen episodes of that show, and many supposedly “lost” episodes of Ceiling Unlimited and Orson Welles Commentaries are found there as well.
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Overall, the recordings in the Welles mss. are the most complete original source of audio for Welles’s radio work during the late 1930s and early-to-mid 1940s, with the highest extant sound quality.
Welles radio scholar Neil Verma writes, “not only are the publicly available recordings of Welles’s works spotty, but they are often mislabeled and misattributed. … The problem is that, right now, only a smattering of Welles broadcasts exist in digital format, and these are poorly spread across a set of websites that provide little contextual information to help frame the material.” By making these materials widely accessible in their best available form and fully contextualized, we will enable scholars, teachers, students, and the interested public to experience Welles’s groundbreaking contributions to the radio field more comprehensively and more enchantingly than would otherwise be possible.
LILLY LIBRARY, INDIANA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
Since its founding in 1960, the Lilly Library has been a premier destination for scholars, students, and the interested public, providing open access to research-level collections in over fifty areas. Collection strengths include American and British literature, Latin Americana, children’s literature, mechanical puzzles, the history of radio, television, and film, and many other areas. Beginning with J.K. Lilly's gift of more than 20,000 books, 17,000 manuscripts, paintings and other objects, the Lilly Library's collection has grown to include more than 400,000 books and 7.5 million items in 2,633 manuscript collections.
Holdings included major rare books such as the New Testament of the Gutenberg Bible, and Audubon's
Birds of America, and important manuscript collections such as the papers of poet Sylvia Plath and novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Collections related to the history of radio include scripts for more than 800 BBC
"Third Programme" broadcasts from the mid-1940s through the early 1970s. The Library also holds the papers of BBC pioneers Douglas Cleverdon, Lance Sieveking and D.G. Bridson, and radio scripts by the
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American television writer John McGreevy. The Library continues to collect Orson Welles materials, with new acquisitions as recently as September 2015.
The Lilly Library staff prides itself on making the collections available to users of all types. New manuscript collections are initially processed using MPLP guidelines (more product, less process) and a collection description and inventory is placed on our web site. This enables us to make collections appropriately available for use while awaiting more complete processing. Every year scholars and researchers come from around the campus and around the world to use the Lilly Library's extensive resources. Annually, the Library has about 50,000 visitors, conducts nearly 250 class sessions for IU students and other learners, hosts 50 other lectures and events, and curates three major exhibitions and numerous smaller displays. In online interactions each year, the Library has reference inquiries from a majority of the US states and multiple international sources and creates more than 10,000 high quality digital images in response to researcher requests.
THE MEDIA DIGITIZATION AND PRESERVATION INITIATIVE (MDPI)
IU President Michael McRobbie charged MDPI [2] with preserving and providing access to significant audio and video recordings on all IU campuses by the University’s Bicentennial in
2020. Funded by the Offices of the President, Provost, and the Vice President for Research, it is the first attempt in the US to comprehensively digitize a University’s media holdings. MDPI is co-chaired by IU Vice President for IT/CIO Brad Wheeler and Libraries Dean Carolyn Walters.
The MDPI strategy for digitization is twofold: a private partner – Memnon Archiving
Services – has established a digitization facility on campus and digitizes most of the holdings using parallel transfer workflows. Second, IU has developed a much smaller digitization facility to handle fragile formats that cannot be sent through the Memnon industrial-scale workflow. The
IU workflow is 1:1 where one engineer digitizes one recording at a time. All recordings in this
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proposal will be digitized by the IU facility. At this writing, both the Memnon and IU facilities
are in production and have digitally preserved nearly 15,000 recordings.
Despite Indiana’s successes in this area, there is not sufficient funding in the budget to
digitize all of its significant audio and video holdings. The IU digitization facility, which has a
separate budget from the Memnon contract, appears particularly underfunded. Difficult choices
must be made as to what is left behind. There is also no funding in the MDPI budget for the
provision of access services. It is clear that IU requires partners if its critical holdings are to be
digitally preserved and deeply accessible. Partnering with NHPRC will enable IU to digitally
preserve this international resource and make it widely accessible for use by humanities
researchers into the future.
ONLINE ACCESS
Free online access to the digitized radio recordings and scripts will be provided through multiple access points: Archives Online at Indiana University (Archives Online) [3], Media
Collections Online [4], and a custom exhibition of the digitized content along with contextual
information using the open-source Omeka platform [5]. In addition, the IU Libraries exposes
metadata to third-party aggregators such as ArchiveGrid and Digital Public Library of America,
and is able to share metadata with digital repositories or aggregators via OAI-PMH or other
protocols.
Existing item-level metadata from the EAD finding aid for the Welles mss. (served
through Archives Online) will be extracted into a spreadsheet for enhancement. Following the
addition of performer names and subject descriptors, the metadata will be uploaded to Media
Collections Online (IU’s media content management interface) and to the Omeka exhibition
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 6 platform. Links to the digitized scripts and recordings will be accessible through all three means, and both MCO and Omeka will point back to the finding aid to provide access to full context of the Welles manuscript collection.
The project proposes to digitize and preserve 324 lacquer disc sound recordings and approximately 100 associated manuscript radio scripts (estimated page count: 7340). The project will provide free online access these materials, as well as the content of 253 lacquer disc sound recordings already digitized. It should be noted that an entire broadcast program may be recorded over multiple discs.
Indiana University’s research on the status of the copyrights and other intellectual property in this collection indicates that nearly all of the recordings, with two exceptions, can be made available online to the public. This project has been reviewed by the Indiana University
Office of General Counsel and authorized by them. Because the recordings were made before
1972, there is no federal copyright protection for the physical recordings, or phonorecords, embodying the CBS Radio dramas produced by the Mercury Theater on the Air and the
Campbell Playhouse between 1938 and 1941. CBS no longer makes any claims to any of the
Mercury Theater on the Air or Campbell Playhouse recordings. They regard the physical recordings themselves as public domain.
We have researched all of the radio plays in the recordings to determine their copyright status under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1909, which was in force when the plays were created.
Two of the plays have registrations and renewals on file with the U.S. Copyright Office:
“Around the World in 80 Days” (1938) and “The War of the Worlds” (1938). This project will exclude “Around the World in 80 Days.” The rights to “The War of the Worlds” are owned by the estate of its author, Howard Koch, and managed by ICM Partners, New York, NY. Given its
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significance, Indiana University Libraries has investigated licensing to make the recording of the
play publicly available online and plans to acquire rights to share the content freely online.
METHODOLOGY AND STANDARDS OF DIGITIZATION: AUDIO RECORDINGS
The internationally recognized publication Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio
Preservation [6], produced by IU with Harvard University, established best practices for meeting
both existing and emerging standards and developed best practices in a number of areas where
standards do not exist. We will continue to work to international standards and practices while
also using the best practice procedures established in our publication. We are guided by the
following documents, all of which have been implemented and tested by the Sound Directions
project: IASA-TC 04, Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects;
Capturing Analog Sound for Digital Preservation: Report of a Roundtable Discussion of Best
Practices for Transferring Analog Discs and Tapes. NRPB, CLIR, LC; Broadcast Wave Format
(BWF); and the Open Archival Information System (OAIS).
The processes described below are realizations of existing and emerging standards and
best practices developed in the archival and audio engineering communities and, in some cases,
by Sound Directions. This system was designed not just to digitize objects but to digitally
preserve them, as described below.
Workflow
1. Pre-digitization Preparation Recordings are prepared for digitization at the Lilly Library by
MDPI staff. This step includes barcoding, gathering technical metadata and entering it into the
project database, and packing into bins for transport to the digitization facility. The technical
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 8 characteristics and physical condition of the collection are then assessed by the MDPI team to evaluate potential problems as well as identify cleaning or other physical restoration that is needed in advance of transfer. It also results in a preliminary digitization plan based on known or suspected preservation problems.
2. Preservation Transfer (Digitization) (a.) Staff. At the IU MDPI digitization facility preservation transfer is conducted by an experienced audio engineer trained in both optimal playback of archival field recordings and preservation standards and best practices for digitization. This follows best practices as established in the IASA and CLIR/LC documents discussed above. IU staff have years of experience digitizing lacquer discs from three NEH- funded Sound Directions projects. (b.) Equipment. MDPI audio preservation studios are constructed as critical listening rooms that are outfitted with professional-level equipment appropriate for use in archival preservation projects including: Studer A810 open reel tape machines, Technics SP-15 turntables, KAB EQSMK12 preamps with a flat setting, Prism and
Benchmark converters, Lynx AES16 audio interfaces, a variety of styli, microscope for assessing disc grooves, Genelec monitors, and WaveLab recording software. (c.) Target format. Following international standards, we use the Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) as the target format for preservation master files which are recorded as linear PCM at 24 bit/96kHz. Basic metadata is entered into the BWF file header to enable identification of the file’s contents and relationships if it becomes separated from our external metadata system. This is just one part of our overall metadata strategy that also includes external storage of more extensive technical metadata. (d.)
Preservation masters. Preservation master files contain unaltered, unmodified, and unedited transfers from the source recording. (e.) Technical metadata collection. Metadata about the source recording, the resulting digital files, and the digitizing process is collected initially during
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transfer. Some of this metadata must be gathered by hand, but much of it is generated
automatically. (f.) Derivative files. Production master files, from which all other derivatives
including deliverables are generated, are created by automated scripts that move files and run file
processing overnight. (g.) Data integrity. An MD5 hash (a type of “checksum”) is generated by a
script after a file is created to ensure data integrity over time. The checksum is verified any time
the file is accessed or copied to a new location.
3. Post-processing Data from the preservation transfer is captured initially on the audio drive of
the Preservation Studio computer. Every evening files created during the day are uploaded by
script to the post-processing system which creates access derivatives, performs basic technical
quality control, constructs a preservation package as described below, and moves files into long-
term storage.
4. Quality Control The MDPI quality control workflow features combination of visual inspection, spot listening, and use of automated software tools. This work is performed by the
MDPI QC Specialist.
5. Creation of Preservation Packages A preservation package (Archival Information Package or AIP using OAIS terminology) consists of audio files along with associated technical, structural, digital provenance, and descriptive metadata. These packages are ingested into a preservation repository (via a Submission Information Package or SIP) for long-term preservation storage and access. A SIP is created for each recording by the post-processing system.
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METHODOLOGY AND STANDARDS OF DIGITIZATION: RADIO SCRIPTS
All digital image files generated by this project must adhere to format-specific archival
practices dictated by “Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation
of Raster Image Master Files.” [7] The Orson Welles’ radio scripts will be digitized in color.
Most of the scripts are bound and will be digitally photographed. The Lilly Library employs a
Nikon D3s single lens reflex digital camera with a full frame CMOS (complementary metal-
oxide semiconductor) sensor that has the capture capacity of 4256 x 2832 pixels with output of
12/14-bit NEF or TIF RGB natively. The camera is tethered to the computer using Adobe
Lightroom for proofing while shooting with a pair of Bowens Tri-Lite 3 x 30W compact fluorescent lamps and a Bencher VP-400 copy stand. Images are captured as full uncompressed
NEF (RAW), 8-bit color channel into Lightroom and saved as uncompressed TIFF files after being manually inspected.
All master digital image files must pass a two-step quality assurance procedure. The first step is an automatic quality control process that ensures valid and well-formed files. A set of computer programs systematically examines the embedded TIFF tag of every digital file to verify that all files are named according to convention, that they are uncompressed TIFF files, that each file has an embedded profile appropriate to its bit depth, that all images in the same item have identical pixel dimensions, and that all images were captured at the appropriate resolution.
Once the files pass the automatic quality control, a sampling of 50% of the files are manually examined to ensure accurate visual quality. Each file selected is examined at 100%
(1:1) magnification to ensure that the image orientation is correct, that the color balance matches the original items as closely as possible, that it is a sharp, in-focus scan, and that no digital
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 11 artifacts of scanning are visually present. To aid in the manual quality control process, the physical item is compared with the digital item with attention to color fidelity. If any inconsistencies are found in either the automatic or manual quality assurance checks, the item in question is rescanned until it is acceptable.
Long-term Management and Storage
IU Libraries is developing technical infrastructure for the preservation storage of digital library collections, centered on a preservation repository implemented using the Fedora open source digital repository platform supported by the DuraSpace organization. IU is currently a financial sponsor of the Fedora 4 development project and is in the process of updating its digital library infrastructure following a Hydra/Fedora 4 framework. Hydra is an open source technical framework that lets institutions deploy robust and durable repositories supporting multiple
“heads” for fully featured digital asset management applications and tailored workflows. IU is one of over 20 partners committed to the support of Hydra.
Fedora manages metadata for preservation and production master files which are stored in the IU Scholarly Data Archive (SDA), a massive data storage system managed by University
Information Technology Services. It currently has a capacity 42 PB. It supports automated mirroring of content in IU’s Bloomington and Indianapolis data centers with two copies stored in each location. All content generated by this project will be stored initially in a preservation package in SDA with the metadata migrated to Fedora when it is ready.
The Indiana University Libraries commit to supporting the preservation of digital master files created in this project, through storage in SDA and the Fedora-based digital library repository, and to sustaining long-term online access to the collection content digitized and created as part of this project, including migration of content to new media formats, storage
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 12
media, repository systems, and delivery systems as needed. See Appendix C for digital
preservation plan.
UNDERSTANDING CONTEXT
Orson Welles on the Air will allow users to understand the context, content, and structure of the collection through close integration of services provided by the IU Libraries to manage archival and media content, enhancement of existing metadata, and expert commentary on the content provided through interpretive essays. Archives Online, the IU portal for Encoded
Archival Description (EAD) finding aids, offers encoding at the folder- or item-level with the ability to link to digitized objects at either level. This project will add links to digitized content to
the item-level EAD allowing archival users to understand how these digitized materials relate to
the larger collection. Digitized images associated with the finding aid are served directly from
our Fedora digital library repository, and links to sound recordings will direct users to Media
Collections Online (MCO). Users may also discover the collection directly through MCO, a
central gateway for preserving and disseminating digital audio and video collections across the
Indiana University community and beyond. Item-level metadata enhancements from the existing
EAD-encoded finding aid will take place as part of more robust content curation capabilities of
MCO. The metadata enhancements will include additional descriptive information such as
performers and subjects for the recordings in order to provide a richer discovery experience.
MCO provides standards-based cataloging tools and workflows and web publishing
mechanisms, including access controls. Media files and metadata are served from our Fedora
digital library repository and IU’s enterprise media streaming service, which can be accessed
from the MCO web portal. MCO is the IU Libraries’ main implementation of the Avalon Media
System [8], an open-source system, based on Hydra and Fedora repository platforms that
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provides an integrated solution for curating, cataloging, collection management, and providing
access to digital audio and video collections, co-developed by Indiana University and
Northwestern University with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services
(IMLS) and the Mellon Foundation.
Further context, and an additional access point, for the collection will be provided through an Omeka exhibition. Omeka, the open-source, online publishing platform developed by
George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media. The Omeka website implementation will feature a customized theme -- a set of page layouts including branding, navigation, and fine-tuned searching and browsing capabilities -- especially designed to showcase the Orson Welles on the Air content and contextual information. Discovery will be enhanced by richer metadata capture, tagging, and the ability to search the full-text of the radio script transcriptions along with the metadata associated with the recordings. Item-level metadata from MCO for the recordings and the finding aid for the scripts will be imported into Omeka and further refined as necessary. Omeka’s tagging functionality will provide a thematic grouping of the recordings and scripts to allow for browsing by year, topic, and performers. As part of the IU
Libraries’ ongoing use of the Omeka platform, Will Cowan, Head of Software Development for
Libraries Technology, has developed a suite of plugins -- re-usable, functional components that provide the ability to “customize” Omeka in a modular fashion. The Avalon Media System plugin for Omeka [9] supports the embedding of audio and video content hosted in Media
Collections Online (MCO). Rather than duplicate the content by ingesting derivative media files into Omeka, the plugin can deliver the content within the Omeka environment straight from our digital library repository.
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 14
In addition, two Orson Welles scholars will be commissioned to write essays designed to provide those new to Orson Welles’s radio oeuvre with a thorough grounding in the historical context and artistry of his work.
PLAN OF WORK
The work outlined for the Orson Welles on the Air project consists of five main areas: digitization, description, discovery, and dissemination and overall project direction over the course of one year, 8/1/2016 through 7/31/2017, and relies on experts from the IU Libraries, including the Lilly Library, Library Technologies and Digital Collections Services, and MDPI.
Reference the accompanying work plan schedule for activity breakdowns per area, including assigned project staff. The costs below are a summary of all project costs, including requested funds, cost share, fringe, and indirect costs. See the budget narrative for more information.
Project Direction & Dissemination: $13,560 Directing the project and disseminating information about the project will be an ongoing activity throughout the year. This work consists of hiring and managing staff, managing the overall project including regular meetings, milestone assessment, overseeing the design and development work for the discovery part of this project, and administering the grant including reporting. Since much of the dissemination work falls under Erika Dowell’s, Project Director, purview with input from Mike Casey, Director of
Technical Operations for MDPI, costs are calculated as part of overall project direction, which are entirely made up of cost share. For more information about dissemination plans, see below.
Digitization: $31,127 Preservation-level digitization of the 324 lacquer disc radio recordings and archival (camera-capture) digitization of 100 accompanying radio scripts will comprise a significant part of the budget and project schedule. This work includes hired staff for
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 15
the actual digitization and cost shared staff for supervision and quality assessment of the
digitized recordings and scripts.
Description: $610 Though description work takes place at various stages throughout the
project timeline, the entirety of funds in this category are earmarked for metadata enhancement .
As part of preparing the lacquer discs for digitization, technical metadata will be recorded. Item-
level metadata enhancements from the existing EAD-encoded finding aid will take place as part
of more robust content curation in Media Collections Online (MCO), an access and preservation
service for audiovisual materials. MCO’s more extensive cataloging functionality will support
additional descriptive information such as performers, subjects, etc. for the recordings. This
work will be completed by a combination of hired and cost-shared staff.
Discovery: $34,734 Though discovery will happen through various access points, the
entirety of the funds in this category are earmarked for creating the custom Omeka web site to
showcase the Welles content. The Omeka work will entail front-end and back-end web development. The Web/Graphic Designer contracted for the front-end work will spend most of the year wire framing, prototyping, creating a custom design, and working closely with the Web
Developer/Analyst in implementing the custom Welles theme. The Web/Graphic Designer will also design promotional materials for the project. The Web Developer/Analyst will manage the back-end work from installing Omeka, mapping and importing content -- metadata and derivatives -- from the Archives Online and MCO services, integrating plugins, and creating new plugins as needed for juxtaposing the recordings and the scripts.
Part of the discovery work will include the commissioning of critical essays by Orson
Welles’ scholars, who will provide not only a critical reading of the materials digitized, but also the socio-historical context.
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DISSEMINATION
The IU Libraries and UITS have a vibrant social media presence. We plan to use those channels for periodic updates including highlighting audio snippets and script images as they are completed, sharing information uncovered as part of metadata enhancement, and interesting tips and lessons learned from our process. We will also leverage the publicity mechanisms established for MDPI. This will include posts on the MDPI blog, highlights on the MDPI website, and releases from the IT Communications Office.
Members of the project team will seek to place project announcements and reports in blogs and publications designed to reach a variety of disciplines, principally library and archives professionals and scholars of sound and performance history, but also including disciplines related to the content of Welles’s radio productions, such as literature scholars, historians of 20th
century Brazil, and the history of childhood. The Association for Recorded Sound Collections
Newsletter, College and Research Libraries News, and Sounding Out! The Sound Studies Blog
are among the outlets we will approach. Opportunities to present at national conferences, such as
those sponsored by the Radio Preservation Task Force, will also be pursued.
PERSONNEL
Erika Dowell, Project Director and Associate Director and Head of Public Services, Lilly
Library. Responsible for grant administration, project management, project outreach and
guidance for web development, and design of web site and promotional materials.
Mike Casey, Director of Technical Operations for the Media Digitization and
Preservation Initiative (MDPI). Responsible for supervising audio digitization staff and
ensuring that all processes meet specifications.
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 17
Daniel Figurelli, Audio Preservation Engineer, MDPI. Responsible for creating
preservation-level transfers of the lacquer discs to preservation master files.
Will Cowan, Head of Software Development, Library Technologies. Responsible for
supervising Web Developer/Analyst position providing guidance on all matters Omeka --
from installation to implementation.
Zach Downey, Digitization Manager, Lilly Library. Responsible for supervising script
digitization staff, overseeing metadata enhancement, and updating finding aid with persistent
links to the digitized objects.
Caitlyn Smallwood, Digital Imaging Specialist, Digital Collections Services.
Responsible for visual quality control inspection of the digitized radio scripts at a 50%
sampling rate.
Susan Hooyenga, Quality Control Specialist, MDPI. Responsible for oversight of
metadata and audio file outputs to ensure that deliverable specifications are met.
Jonathan Richardson, AV Technician, MDPI. Responsible for preparing recordings for
digitization, including organizing, cleaning, and gathering technical metadata
PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES
1. Digitize 324 lacquer disc sound recordings of Orson Welles radio recordings (some discs
may be damaged or unplayable).
2. Provide free online access to the contents of approximately 580 digitized sound
recordings (discs from this proposal, plus 253 previously digitized lacquer discs).
3. Digitize more than 7,000 page images from related radio scripts.
4. Revise Welles finding aid to include links to all the digitized recordings.
IU Orson Welles on the Air proposal - Narrative 18
5. Track popular and scholarly usage of the online resources through formal citation
analysis (via PURLs) and altmetrics.
REFERENCES [1] Welles mss. finding aid, http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/iudl/findingaids/lilly/InU-Li-VAC2791
[2] MDPI, https://mdpi.iu.edu/
[3] Archives Online, http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/findingaids
[4] Media Collections Online, https://media.dlib.indiana.edu
[5] Omeka, http://omeka.org/
[6] Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation
[7] Technical Guidelines for Digitizing Cultural Heritage Materials: Creation of Raster Image
Master Files, http://1.usa.gov/1bqwrlv
[8] Avalon Media system, http://www.avalonmediasystem.org
[9] Avalon Media Plugin for Omeka: http://www.avalonmediasystem.org/blog-post/avalon- embedded
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