Many fine musicians have passed through the studios of WUMB since the radio station was established in 1968. As part of a series highlighting efforts to digitize and make openly available over sixty years of public broadcasting history, Rebecca J. Rosen from The Atlantic has written a piece about a 1994 interview and studio performance for WUMB by Grammy-winning singer Patty Griffin “before anyone had heard of her.” The focus of the series by The Atlantic is the establishment of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a partnership between the Library of Congress and WGBH. UMass Boston’s Joseph P. Healey Library was an enthusiastic and early contributor to this project.
WUMB-FM, a non-commercial radio station licensed to the University of Massachusetts with studios on the UMass Boston campus, has been a public radio affiliate of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) since 1986. University Archives & Special Collections in the Healey Library preserves the historical records, audio, visual and textual documentation of WUMB’s first 35 years and, in 2013, sent approximately 80 hours of recordings from the WUMB archives to be digitized for inclusion in the AAPB. Audio recordings that University Archives & Special Collections contributed include talk radio show recordings such as Black Perspectives, Commonwealth Journal, and From the Source, as well as live in-studio and concert performances by a range of musicians. In her Atlantic article, Rosen features a brief audio excerpt from a 1994 interview and performance by Griffin of her song “Regarding Mary.” Click here to read the story and hear the audio on the Atlantic‘s website.
The digitized recordings are still being processed by the American Archive and University Archives & Special Collections. Keep visiting this blog for more information.
University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.
University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.
