The Digital Deli Too Research Pages - Introduction

Golden Age Radio Research

A brief introduction to Golden Age Radio History research and and some observations with respect to the quality of research--or lack thereof--into the thousands of Golden Age Radio programs that have been documented during the past fifty years.




	We take great pains to obtain--and provide--the most accurate, up-to-date information we can find about the Golden Age Radio activities we support. The true enjoyment of Golden Age Radio programs is a matter of taste and degree. We recognize that the vast majority of those who listen to radio programs from The Golden Age enjoy them as nothing more than an occasional novelty. There's another body of listeners that have an interest in one program or one genre of programs from The Golden Age. Then to varying degrees, lie the majority of Golden Age Radio fans: they've acquired a collection of their favorite individual programs or genre and identify their interest in Golden Age Radio as a 'hobby'. And finally, there are the relatively smaller body of Golden Age Radio collectors that consider themselves archivists, preservationists, or Radio historians, who approach their interest in Golden Age Radio as an avocation. There are no finite points of delineation between these arbitrary categories of Golden Age Radio fans. It's a continuum that shifts and expands and contracts depending on several factors to which we can all relate: The availability of programs we enjoy. The quality of the available programs that we enjoy. The amount of time we make available to enjoy our favorite programs or collection. The accuracy of the information they acquire about our favorite programs. The external expenses they may incur to enjoy our favorite Golden Age Radio programs. AVAILABILITY The availability of the programs or genre of programs we enjoy is based on a finite supply of recorded media of varying durability. In all too many instances the recorded media still available is quite fragile. The Golden Age of Radio began with the advent of broad-cast radio signals that--if recorded at all--were recorded onto either 'wax' cylinders (in reality, resin based cylinders, for the most part), or onto electrical transcription discs, or in the later years of broadcast recording, on open reel magnetic tapes. All of these recorded media are quite fragile to varying degrees. And all of them are susceptible to deterioration and mishandling. There are wildly varying estimates of the existing pool of available media from The Golden Age of Radio. The only estimates we can quote with any certainty are the recordings in the collections of The Library of Congress, The Military, museum archives, university archives and public and private published special collections. The remaining media still available--but not publicly accounted for--reside in the holdings of the thousands of private collectors throughout the world. QUALITY The quality of available recordings is yet another continuum. Without specifically addressing the preservation of sound quality, we can all relate to whether a recording from The Golden Age is at least audible. From that point forward in the continuum, listening quality becomes highly subjective. Many listeners can tolerate the occasional pops, clicks, or skips from marginal electrical transcriptions as long as there's enough of the recording intact to hear a complete recorded presentation. The audio-cleaning tools available to the modern collector span the range of marginal to exquisite--at a commensurate price. TIME The time that any of us can devote to either a hobby or an avocation is a resource, like any other. Finding, acquiring, archiving, converting and documenting a growing collection of Golden Age Radio recordings requires an efficient budgeting of time--for the hobbyist or avid collector, alike. ACCURACY Sooner or later, every category of Golden Age Radio collector will express interest in more in-depth information about a favorite recording or performer. We have every right to expect that the resources we employ to find additional information about The Golden Age of Radio are accurate. Or at the least, that they indicate the level of accuracy we can expect in using that resource. This can be as simple as the file name or internal tag of a digital recording. Or it can be the label affixed to an electrical transcription disc or tape. It can be an online resource we consult, or an authoritative book on the subject of our inquiries. Whatever the resource, we hope and expect that the resource we employ is a reliable, accurate resource. EXPENSE Nothing is free. We all attach value to our time. We all attach value to our monetary resources. We all attach value to our intelligence. And most of us attach value our basic human resourcefullness. We attach some degree of value to any and all of these finite resources. If the resources we expend prove to be expended efficiently, we're pleased. If the expenditure of these finite resources result in dissatisfaction with the result we feel wasteful, cheated, or disillusioned, to one degree or another. THE BALANCING ACT The point of our preface is that the utmost personal enjoyment of Golden Age Radio--or any hobby or avocation for that matter--is a balancing act. It's a series of trade-offs between available resources, expenditure of resources, and the very subjective quality we attach to the result of these personal efforts. The ultimate conclusion can best be posed by a simple question: *What steps can we take to ensure that we consistently obtain a satisfactory experience from the resources we expend toward collecting and enjoying a Golden Age Radio Collection?*

	It's not a physical minefield, but it nevertheless requires a similar level of precaution. And that map? The map is research. While some of us tend to be rugged individualists, the vast majority of us would rather take the road more frequently traveled. For the new or seasoned Golden Age Radio collector alike, searching for information about a favorite Golden Age Radio program or performer should most often be a simple matter of going to the nearest public library, or using an Internet search engine. A brick and mortar library--private or public--can almost always be trusted to provide reliable, well-sourced, dependable research resources *on most subjects. Or if you like a cuppa joe or a latte with while you do your research, there's always the nearest Barnes & Noble* or Borders. But whether you attempt to find current information about Golden Age Radio while getting your caffeine fix, or cold turkey at the library, you won't find a great deal of accurate, timely information at either brick and mortar venue. With rare few exceptions, most of the information you'll find in researching your favorite Golden Age Radio topic via hold-in-your-hand books will be: Out-dated. Inaccurate. Readily unavailable. Incomplete. Patently false How can this be? Again, with rare few exceptions, most of the published information you'll find on Golden Age Radio topics will be derived from the same, cross-contaminated pool of unreliable, unverified, unprovenanced, anecdotal information you'll find on the Internet. It's that simple. And if you go the Barnes & Noble or Amazon route and pay for 'authoritative' books on Golden Age Radio in general, you'll find it's the same, recycled, anecdotal, cross-contaminated misinformation you've found elsewhere. The explanation is painfully simple. There has never been a systematic, peer-reviewed, standards-based attempt to research or archive Golden Age Radio programs outside of The Library of Congress and a handful of jealously private institutional archives. The vast majority of the sources of information employed to produce the $40 - $100 'authoritative' Golden Age Radio books in current circulation are apocryphal, anecdotal, or based on the loosely evolved, jealously guarded 'quasi-research' from the old time radio, or 'otr' community that's evolved over the past thirty-five years. The incentive to keep churning out all of this misinformation is equally obvious--it's been very lucrative. The handful of good ole boys that conspired to control the highly commercialized 'otr' cottage industry have spent thirty-five years scrambling to grab everything in sight related to Golden Age Radio recordings and related ephemera. But it's those same ham-fisted practices that have caused most of the serious Golden Age Radio preservationists and archivists to roll up their tents and retreat en masse from the mainstream collecting community that's devolved into 'otr'