This episode features a conversation with Jocelyn Robinson, who is working on a project to preserve radio broadcast archives at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. During the conversation, she shares some of the history of these radio stations and their importance to campus life, and her ongoing work to gather resources to survey and preserve the archives of about 30 stations throughout the southeast.
Show hosts Jesse Johnston and Evan Haywood talk with Jocelyn Robinson about the preservation of archives from HBCU radio stations. Robinson is the director of radio preservation and archives at WYSO Public Radio and working on a project to preserve radio broadcast archives at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. During the conversation, she shared about the history of these radio stations and their importance to campus life, and her ongoing work to gather resources to survey and preserve the archives of about 30 stations throughout the southeast. We also talked about the content and sound of the stations, which led us into thinking about why audio archives are so unique and important, as well as some tips on how to start out on an audio archiving project.
Sound clips from the WRVS archives are used courtesy of the Elizabeth City State University (North Carolina), Archives and Special Collections, G.R. Little Library.
Jesse Johnston: [00:00:00] Welcome to Sound Files, a podcast about the preservation of recorded sounds and the people and organizations who preserve them. Sound Files is presented by the National Recording Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization that works in alignment with the Library of Congress to promote and preserve historical audio.
Evan Haywood: We are focused on giving our listeners a deep insight into archival methodologies, why these preservation projects are so important, and the people who have made it their mission to preserve audio resources for future generations.
Jesse Johnston: I'm Jesse Johnston, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information.
I'm also executive director of the NRPF and a former grant maker in cultural heritage preservation.
Evan Haywood: And I'm Evan Haywood, an audio archivist, engineer, and music producer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I run the Black Ram Treehouse Recording Studio.
Jesse Johnston: In this episode, I talk [00:01:00] with Jocelyn Robinson, the director of radio preservation and archives at WYSO Public Radio.
She's working on a project called to preserve radio broadcast archives at historically black colleges and universities. During the conversation, she shared with me some of the history of these radio stations and their importance to campus life, and her ongoing work to gather resources to survey and preserve the archives of about 30 stations throughout the southeast.
We also talked about the content and sound of the stations, which led us into thinking about why audio archives are so unique and important, as well as some tips on how to start out on an audio archiving project.
Evan Haywood: Throughout this episode, we've dropped in a few clips of audio that were digitized with support from the Mellon Foundation, the Northeast Document Conservation Center, and assistance from a recent NRPF grant that supported preservation of the station archives at Elizabeth City State University in November of 2023.
Let's get to the conversation.
Jesse Johnston: Thank you, Jocelyn, for taking the time to speak with me on the podcast today. To start off, would you introduce yourself?
Jocelyn Robinson: My name is Jocelyn [00:02:00] Robinson and I am the Director of Radio Preservation and Archives at WYSO. I'm a public radio station in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Jesse Johnston: Thanks so much.
It's a pleasure to have you here on the podcast. Can you tell us about your work with Preserving HBCU Radio? How did you become involved with these radio collections?
Jocelyn Robinson: Well, I'm also the, the project director for the HBCU Radio Preservation Project. I live here in Yellow Springs. It's a small progressive community that is sort of in the shadows of the the towers at Antioch College.
WYSO was at one time Antioch College's radio station.
Jesse Johnston: How did you make the connection between the WISO collections and those at the HBCU stations?
Jocelyn Robinson: It goes back to to 2013, at which time I was the title three director at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio. It's a it's a HBCU I [00:03:00] worked with my counterparts at other HBCUs in terms of how we maintained compliance how we interpreted directives coming from the Department of Ed At any given time.
And so I got to know the HBCU community really well.
Jesse Johnston: Yeah, I can definitely appreciate those broader community contexts, but why did you focus in on the radio stations?
Jocelyn Robinson: As I was really working with WYSO's collection, I thought about my work at historically Black colleges and universities. and knew that a lot of campuses had radio stations.
Central State had a radio station, WCSU, licensed by the FCC in 1962, one of the first, if not the first, HBCU to have an FCC license. And I thought, wow, if A little college radio station like WYSO has some of the [00:04:00] material that it has that is just so phenomenal and so reflective of the times that produced it.
What might HBCU stations have? Especially, you know, those that are, they're mainly in the South. They were, part of the civil rights movement and the black nationalist movements and are these incredible reflections of their campuses and the communities that are served by the radio stations, you know, broadcast footprints.
Audio Clip from WRVS FM: This
success fact on WRVS FM, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Elizabeth City State University,
89. 9 ECSU listener supported public radio. We're WRVS FM, Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Elizabeth City State University.
Jesse Johnston: So these stations sound like an incredible resource that document many aspects of the life of the HBCU campuses and the communities that they served.
But I know that preserving collections like these takes a lot of work. So how did you [00:05:00] start on the project to preserve the station's records?
Jocelyn Robinson: In 2013, I took a local in radio production offered by WYSO. And I got bitten by the bug and started producing audio for broadcast using WYSO's historical media.
So I figured that when the right funding, the right opportunity came along to create a project To find out and with my archival training, knowing that, you know, the first order of business. in any collection development work is to inventory material and figure out what's there.
Jesse Johnston: It's interesting to hear about how you got started on preserving these collections and clearly they were in need of a lot of work, but archival programs often don't [00:06:00] address this kind of history and especially not this format of audio recordings.
So how did you become aware of the cultural value of these stations?
Jocelyn Robinson: I have a background in African American history and culture. I have an undergrad degree in art history, but I have a master's degree in cultural studies with a concentration in race, gender, and identity. So those are very important disciplines to me just as a person and, but that my work has always had something to do with, with, you know, With race, with identity, with culture, with, with access to, to those things through, through public programming, through museums, through exhibits, you know, et cetera.[00:07:00]
Jesse Johnston: So, you had a background in African American studies. What got you into radio and sound preservation?
Jocelyn Robinson: And I was enthralled with this media in part because there were some civil rights events that happened in the early 60s in Yellow Springs that I recall as a child and was witness to as a child. And I felt a very deep personal connection to the material as well as seeing its value historically [00:08:00] for the, for the community and the state, for the nation.
Jesse Johnston: Like what kind of historical recordings were you finding there and the W. Y. S. O. collections?
Jocelyn Robinson: WYSO's archives includes over 3, 000 open reel tapes that begin back in 1958 when the station was founded and really students at Antioch captured. The voices of the changing times from the late 50s through the present, but particularly in the late 60s, early 70s and into the 80s when formats really started to change that media is just phenomenal.
recordings of Cesar Chavez, Flo Kennedy, Alice Walker, Kwame Ture, and, and, and also local voices. So, so WYSO's collection had, uh, really important, really vibrant African American voices on a national scale, as well as local. [00:09:00] And I was really inspired and intrigued by it.
Audio Clip 2 from WRVS FM:
It's time for movements.
Movements, a magazine program on your radio.
Here's your host, Dr. Jennifer Keen Dawes.
Hello everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in once again to Jazzy 899 ECSU. My name is Jennifer Keen Dawes and you are listening to movements. It's my very, very, very great pleasure to have today the new dean of the School of Business here at the university, none other than Professor George Jackson.
And Professor Jackson will be telling us a little bit about what he plans to do for the school, what he did as chair of the then Department of Business, and a lot of other fun things. Welcome to the program. Welcome. Welcome. Dr.
Kingdall, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
I know we are running a little bit behind time.
I saw you running [00:10:00] across the quadrangle trying to get here, but thank you so much for coming.
Jesse Johnston: So, it sounds like you're becoming very interested in the historical aspect of the radio stations where you were working. I know you ultimately received a grant to support the work with the HBCU Radio Archives from the National Recording Preservation Foundation in 2018.
But what led you there?
Jocelyn Robinson: I quit my day job in 2015 to produce full time and work with this, this material in particular. And I produced a series called Rediscovered Radio. And I was creating short, uh, documentary type pieces using the historical audio and then interviewing folks and contextualizing the material with the present.
And when I did that, when I quit my day job, I went back to school and got a grad certificate in archives administration. Going to Wright State University's public history program to do this grad certificate, [00:11:00] I was given an assignment to Analyze an, an article that was about digital preservation, and it happened to be an article in the Rolling Stone, and it was about trying to remaster these greatest hits albums when there was no metadata for, for the, the digital files to that, that were record originally recorded.
And there was a guy that was quoted in it who I thought was really interesting. His name's Sam Broski. And he, at the time, was working with the Library of Congress and I googled his name because I thought, Oh, this guy's really cool. I wonder if he's written other things or, you know, what he's up to. And it so happened that he was the keynote speaker for the very first Radio Preservation Task Force.
conference in Washington, D. C. at the Library of Congress. And I talked my [00:12:00] faculty into giving me my midterms early so I could attend the conference because it was free and open to the public. And I got there and I sort of fell into the world of radio preservation at the, the most basic Yet highest levels.
Audio Clip 3 from WRVS FM: If you realize the critical importance of a radio station that won't bend its principles simply to make a dollar, then please take a moment to support us today. Call us right now during this fund drive and make a membership pledge to the station. That number to call is 3 3 5 3 5 1.
Jesse Johnston: So you were working with these historical materials from WYSO.
I love the title, Rediscovered Radio, by the way. And then you made this connection with the NRPF. So you went to the conference, found out about these potential grant opportunities, and you just applied?
Jocelyn Robinson: That's, that's how it worked. It was not a [00:13:00] daunting process. challenge to, to write the, the initial NRPF grant, and it was a thrill to receive it.
And it was a modest grant. You know, I think that that's a truth that needs to be told. And I Got a lot done with the funds that were made available to me.
Jesse Johnston: So when you got to working with the HBCU station archives, what were the challenges of working with those collections?
Jocelyn Robinson: What I realized in the course of it was that nobody had collections.
They had materials, but there was no collection. That there were no relationships to speak of between the radio stations and the institutional archives on the campuses. So they had preservation experts nearby. Again, they didn't have necessarily digital training or audio, visual training, preservation training.
So there were some gaps. But because there [00:14:00] wasn't a relationship often, you know, radio is ephemeral at different places in higher ed. It's going to fall under different divisions of the university. Just like HBCUs, all the radio stations are, are, are, are really different. So I created, uh, a, Profile of all of the stations based on, you know, where they were located, what their power was, what formats, when they were founded, whether they had an academic component or not, whether they used volunteers, whether they used students, some, you know, operate like commercial stations, even though they may have an educational license.
Some of them are commercial and I didn't really spend a lot of time with the commercial stations. And this is really for those stations that have educational licenses and, and are considered public media.[00:15:00]
Jesse Johnston: So the institutional context of the stations seems like it was quite varied and [00:16:00] complicated. But how did you manage working with the physical collections themselves? Did the grant support any work with those?
Jocelyn Robinson: So, There was also a little bit of change that I was able to make available to folks for some like emergency preservation needs.
So there was some, some shelving was purchased because a lot of times materials were. someplace in a box on the floor somewhere. And, and that gave a couple of the stations an opportunity to, to organize the materials a little bit. And format wise, you know, I found that there was a lot of DATs, a lot of digital audio tape, a lot of transitional formats.
And, uh, You know, not, not as much open reel tape, but there was some, but I got a kind of a sense of, of what materials were out there, what their reformatting needs might be.
Jesse Johnston: It sounds like you had a very comprehensive view of the [00:17:00] issues that these collections were confronting and. They were some very substantial challenges.
How were you able then to decide what needed to be done next?
Jocelyn Robinson: When I wrote the final report, I created a list of recommendations that had to do with the kinds of training that might be necessary, the kinds of relationship building that might be needed between the stations and their institutional archives, disaster preparedness.
Digital preservation, audio preservation, and also the storytelling component, which isn't real strong and a lot of HBCU stations and how necessary that that is to, to, you know, make this kind of material. Available so people know so that that it's accessible and and what they can do with it from everything from the academic side to, you know, a production side, because it's a it's a primary source [00:18:00] and and really precious and this wonderful reflection again of the the history and legacy of the HBCU campus, which I find to be hallowed ground and the communities that the radio stations and the and the campus itself serve.
Audio Clip 4 from WRVS FM: At this time, we will be favored by a musical selection from the greatest university choir in the world, the Elizabeth City State University Choir, directed by Professor Billy C. Hines, accompanied by Eve Vendetta Sutton. They will do a musical selection titled The Beatitudes by Harry Simeon.[00:19:00]
Jesse Johnston: Okay, and what happened after the report came out?
Jocelyn Robinson: Well, when the report came out, um, I had been presenting. And a journalist with the Chronicle of Higher Education, who was an alumna of Florida A& M University, saw that I was interested in HBCU radio, reached out to me and said, Hey, I'd like to do a little profile of, of you in the project in the Chronicle. So I was able to talk about the [00:20:00] project and some of the outcomes of, uh, of it. And it ran and a couple people reached out to me. And one of the people who reached out to me was Bill from the Northeast Document Conservation Center, NEDCC in Andover, Massachusetts. We got started and within, you know, months, we were in dialogue with the Mellon Foundation, and they funded a pilot project for us to work with a small number of the HBCU stations. And basically what the goal of the project was by that point was to develop an ethos of preservation at HBCU radio stations. And that initial funding had us working with Five institutions, Clark Atlanta University and [00:21:00] South Carolina State, Fisk University in Nashville, Savannah State, and Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina.
And they were a good, good cross section because they were urban, rural, and, you know, private. Public institutions. So it was just a nice cross section of, of HBCUs and radio stations. And, and that project extended into a bridge grant into a planning grant toward a full implementation of radio preservation at HBCUs.
That has taken us to this moment where we're ramping up for, for, for full implementation, which will kick off in January of 2024.[00:22:00]
Jesse Johnston: The initial survey work sounds like it was really beneficial, and I'm so pleased to learn about how successfully you've been able to develop the project. Can you tell us a bit more about the landscape of the HBCU radio stations? You [00:23:00] told us about their historical development before, but how many stations were there and what kinds of archival collections were you finding once you found them?
Jocelyn Robinson: There are 29 stations currently existing. When I started the project, there were 30, which I think points to the importance of the, of the project WSHA at Shaw university in Raleigh, North Carolina. was sold, their license was sold in 2018. And prior to that, the radio station at Fayetteville State in North Carolina also was sold.
And that's just a great loss. It's a great loss to the university and to the, and to the community.
Jesse Johnston: What happened to the recordings of those stations? One
Jocelyn Robinson: of the, one of the recommendations that I gave with the final report for NRPF was that we institute a, an oral history project around the stations because [00:24:00] in many cases the materials are gone.
You know, what do you do with with obsolete formats that you can't play back, you throw them out if you need the room, because there had not yet been this ethos of preservation, you know, developed when it comes to radio, which is ephemeral. It's just, you know, you broadcast it goes out into the ether. And, and so, you know, You know, we, we don't really think of, of, of that kind of preservation.
The digital age has made it much easier, of course, but, but, but back then, you know, materials really got, got thrown out. So, but there are people who were students and student programmers and, you know, folks who, who could very easily. Tell the story of the radio station and its, and its programming and its impact on the community.
So that's part of what we're doing. And in fact, you know, the staffing for the implementation project includes a, um, [00:25:00] a team of oral historians. And training in oral history for radio preservation.
Jesse Johnston: You did mention the importance of these stations in HBCU campus life, but what did they actually sound like?
Did they play music? Did they have news programming? Can you tell us a bit about what kinds of events were recorded by these stations?
Jocelyn Robinson: All kinds, all kinds. It's so great. Some of it is, you know, the life of the, the, the academic institution, like convocations and commencements and addresses by the president or, you know, uh, lectures by important people who come to visit campus and important alumni, that sort of thing.
So there's, there's, there's some of that. Sporting events. One of my very favorite actually, uh, is from Elizabeth City and it's a, a women's basketball game. And, and you would think that it was the NBA finals. I mean, it's the, it's the, the, [00:26:00] the enthusiasm of the, the commentators and, uh, you know, and the color that they're giving.
It's just, it, it's just priceless, you know? And the sound, you can hear the b the basketball bouncing, you know, on the hardwood you can hear the, the buzzer. It's just, it's just really wonderful. atmospheric Audio
Audio Clip 5 from WRVS FM: 26 is your first half score here in Charlotte, North Carolina. Be coming up with a timeout here momentarily and ball is stolen away by 42.
Johnson, Johnson's shot is up, and it is good. 49 28 now. Lady Tigers of St. Paul. Coach, you gotta respect them. A little bit of fight here. And we'll have a timeout on the floor. So, nice run that time by the Lady Tigers. This is Coach Serena King. Took a quick timeout here early to try to get her girls back.
It was 46 16 at one point in time. And now Lady Tigers They've come back and scored. They're not giving up. No, Coach. They have went on a quick [00:27:00] 12 3 run here as they made it now a 49 28 game. Got a 30 second timeout. We're going to keep it right here at the station. I mean, keep it right here at the arena.
Jesse Johnston: That's a great clip. What other kinds of programming did the stations feature?
Jocelyn Robinson: You know, there's, there's, uh, public affairs programming of all sorts. Many of the stations took the, take their, their role as the voice of the, the black community in, in a way. town or, or area where the, the campus is, and they take that very seriously and particularly around, you know, it was like public health issues, you know, diabetes and, and hypertension and things like that.
Really all sorts of things. I mean, there's news magazines, a lot of music format, you know, basically jazz and R& B in particular. For instance, WSSB at South Carolina State is the [00:28:00] only full time jazz station in South Carolina, you know, and that's a, that's an American musical form. And, and, um, so there's interviews with folks that, that, you know, have come to campus or come through town or done a masterclass someplace.
WCLK is a powerhouse station in Atlanta and many, many interviews with folks who have come to perform in this major market that is Atlanta. So yeah, there's lots of material.[00:29:00]
Jesse Johnston: These are all great examples that help to illustrate the value of historical audio. You talked earlier about coming from a history and cultural studies background, and as you know, audio itself hasn't always been highly valued in the historical record. I can even recall talking with some historians who said they only want the transcripts of oral histories, not the audio itself.
But obviously we both think there's a deep value in preserving the audio. So what do you think about that? What is special about historical audio?
Jocelyn Robinson: You know, [00:30:00] audio is, it's so evocative. It's so atmospheric. When you pick up the human voice that's recorded, you hear the life of that person, you hear their, their breath, you hear them cogitate, you hear them smile.
I think, uh, there's an intimacy with audio and the, and the human voice that is just, It's difficult to, to describe, it's a sense that, that I think takes us so much closer in some ways than both visual and audio together. Or just visual. It allows our mind's eye to be engaged and in our, which means our imaginations can be engaged.
[00:31:00] So, yeah, I'm a big fan of audio.
Jesse Johnston: Yeah, I agree. I was thinking back to the example you mentioned about the basketball game earlier, where you could hear the basketball bouncing on the floor, and I really almost felt like I was there on the scene.
Audio Clip 5 from WRVS FM: Guess you could hear the ECSU cheerleaders doing their thing
in the background. Well, see, this is what I'm talking about. You got to remember, you got to play the whole 20 minutes. You can't get complacent, because the other team is going to continue to play. They're not giving up, and this team is going to hustle.
So the Lady Vikings are going to have to keep that tempo and keep playing.
Okay, Lady Vikings now going to set the inbound. They're going to inbound Price to Jones. Jones, I mean, Price gives it right back to Jones. Now she'll give it back to Price. 20 on the shot clock. 3. 35 left to play here. Lady Vikings lead it 49 28. Price going to dribble drive into the lane and she [00:32:00] will take it inside the paint.
And she is fouled that time by 42. Katrina Wright. And with that, coach, we're going to have a timeout. So we've got a timeout on the floor. With 3. 29 left to play here in the first half, your score here from the Charlotte Bobcats Arena, it's the ECSU Lady Vikings, 49, St. Paul's Lady Tigers, 28. We'll be right back after this brief public service announcement.
Jocelyn Robinson: Oh, yeah, you can smell the locker room, you know, it's like it's just there's just a sense of being there in a way. It's really, really wonderful.
Jesse Johnston: So you mentioned the NRPF grant, and that it was a modest one, but it seems like the project has really gone on to have great impact. I know you even received a second NRPF grant in 2023.
But how would you characterize the impact of the NRPF grant on your project?
Jocelyn Robinson: I mean, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. We wouldn't be where we are with this project without it. The, the initial [00:33:00] NRPF funding was the, was, it was the, the, the fertile ground that the seed could be planted into because it, it also connected.
into this much larger community of folks doing audio preservation of different, of different sorts and the visibility was important. Just the, the, the support for, and I have to say Gerald was wonderful. Just the, the support for the project itself and the enthusiasm for the, Potential that the pot project represented was was inspiring and and really helped keep the momentum going For sure,
Jesse Johnston: you have a broad range of experiences in audio preservation and clearly these radio station archives are complex So given that experience What would your advice be to someone who's starting an audio preservation project and wants to [00:34:00] maintain some strong archival values in the project?
Where should they start? Oh
Jocelyn Robinson: Well, where you start is kind of at the beginning and that's figuring out what it is you've got, you know, an inventory or survey is the really the first step and how much is there and what formats are there and what's their condition. And when you know that, then you can start to drill down into.
What's the time frame, what's, what's the content, if that can be discerned at that point, you know, what's on the labels, and then organizing that material arrangement is the next step, you know, so that you have that material in such a manner that you can easily, you know, Access what you have there and the preservation part of that comes.
It comes in when you've [00:35:00] ascertained the condition and what you need to do to be able to preserve that material. Like, what is the appropriate storage situation for it? And if it's media that has to be reformatted to protect its protect the content. What's the plan for doing that? And if it's a collection that's just being created, you need policies and procedures.
You need to figure out who gets to, uh, to put their hands on this material and how can it be used and what kinds of, of permissions are necessary for it. And And once you've ascertained that, then what do you do with it, you know, is it strictly a research kind of, of, uh, material or is it something that tells a bigger story that you can engage other [00:36:00] disciplines or you can engage other folks to, to, uh, Celebrate with you, whatever that content is, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a pretty cool arc because once it's, once it's identified and organized and made accessible, there's so many things you can do with it.
Jesse Johnston: Yeah, that's a big arc. It's a lot of work, but I hope that your advice can be informative and helpful to potential grantees of NRPF or in other places. And to anyone who is hoping to make progress on an audio archive project. It's been a real pleasure to speak with you today, Jocelyn. But before we wrap up, can you tell us about what your current work on the HBCU preservation project is?
Jocelyn Robinson: Well, the implementation project that's going to kick off in January is very exciting. But one of the things that we were able to do in preparation for that, in this ramping up phase, is that we were able to take advantage of. of some additional funding from NRPF [00:37:00] to go to Elizabeth City to test out some of our processes and, and team approaches to preservation.
We found that we really needed to have boots on the ground. Um, that was another recommendation from, from the earlier NRPF project was that the, the staff at both the radio stations and especially at the libraries and archives, they're over there. They're overburdened. They, they, they need assistance. And rather than us showing up and saying, Hey, here's some more work for you to do.
What we figured out was that we need to come and do the work. And work with them to, to, to help them organize materials, figure out what they'd like to have reformatted, do the oral history interviews where we can, and, you know, train folks in how to use the content for, for. Other types of projects and that sort of thing.
So, so we were able to use some funding to send a team to Elizabeth City [00:38:00] in October. And we had a blast getting some materials put together, boxed up and prepared to take to NEDCC for reformatting. And that material will be available in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, ultimately, as well as at Elizabeth City.
You know, we're thrilled to have that opportunity to do a sort of proof of concept exercise as we're preparing for the implementation grant kickoff.
Jesse Johnston: I can't wait to hear about the next steps in the HBCU radio preservation project. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. It's been a pleasure and I look forward to sharing this conversation on the podcast.
Evan Haywood: Sound files is produced for the national recording preservation foundation by Jesse Johnston and Evan Haywood with support from the university of Michigan school of information, the black Ram. Tree [00:39:00] house, the NRPF and the generous contributions of our donors.
Jesse Johnston: This podcast was recorded and mixed at the Black Ram Tree House in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Original Music and Sound Design by Evan Haywood.
You can follow NRP F on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, or just visit our website at www.recordingpreservation.org where you can learn more about the NRPs programs and how to support them.
Evan Haywood: And don't forget to subscribe to the Sound Files Podcast. Rate up. Leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.
Jesse Johnston: Thank you for listening to this episode of sound files.