Wilmington’s Hagley Museum now has the resources to catalog a massive collection of broadcasting history, thanks to a grant it received this month.
The Council on Library and Information Research awarded a nearly $300,000 grant to Hagley to manage the David Sarnoff Library collection. That collection includes personal papers and other documents from the iconic pioneer of broadcast, who was instrumental in the growth of both the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and NBC.
Erik Rau, Hagley’s director of library services, says the Sarnoff collection has great historical value.
"This collection allows you to see what all of RCA was up to during those years, which very few collections allow you to do," said Rau.
Rau adds the collection isn’t just paper.
"Documents [outlining the collection] widely describe photographs. It includes film reels, audio visual materials, videotape, audiotape, that kind of thing. Lab notebooks, manuscript materials. There’s almost 3,000 linear feet. To put that into perspective, that’s almost half a mile," said Rau.
The Hagley Museum acquired the collection when the David Sarnoff Library in Princeton closed in 2009. The $291,000 grant will allow Hagley to hire a number of archivists to complete the cataloging task within three years.
The David Sarnoff Library collection will be open to researchers in 2017.