Arrangement
Tape recordings are arranged in chronological order, as follows. See Inventory for complete list of titles and recording dates.
Box 1 1950-81
Box 2 1981
Box 3 1981-83
Box 4 1983-84
Box 5 1984-86
Box 6 1986-89
Box 7 1989-93
Box 8 1993-94
Box 8A 1994
Box 9 1994-95
Box 10 1995-97
Box 11 1997-98
Box 12 1998-99
Box 13 1999-2000
Box 14 2000-01
Box 15 2001-02
Box 16 Oversize cased recordings, 1998
Box 17 2002—04
Box 18 2005-2010
Box 19 2010-13; 1990-91, 1997-98
Box 20 Undated, unidentified, and miscellaneous
Box 21 1972-2000, 2004
Box 22 1986-1992
Box 23 1992-1995
Box 24 1997-2006, undated
Box 25 1971, 1992, 1994-1995, 2000, n.d.
Box 26 1995, 1998-2001
Box 27 2002-2004, n.d.
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationRG 37/1 Phonograph Records
RG 37/2 Reel-to-Reel Tapes
RG 37/4 CD-ROMs
RG 43 Oral History Collection
Cassette recordings may also be found in personal papers and other record groups, particularly the Office of Communications Records (RG 18), the Art Department (RG 9/28), and the Oberlin College Radio Station, WOBC (19/7).
The cassette tape recordings consist of approximately 550 separate recordings, primarily of campus events and productions. The earliest recordings on cassette tape in this collection are user copies from phonograph records and reel-to-reel tapes. Starting in 1980 the College consistently recorded campus events on cassette tape up until the dominance of digital media in the mid-2000s. The collection does not include any recordings from 2007 or 2009. Only three recordings represent 2013, and as of May 2014 the Archives had not received any campus recordings on cassette tape for that year. The researcher should also consult the CD-ROM collection for recent recordings, and the reel-to-reel tape collection for earlier recordings.
Oberlin College has a long history of attracting distinguished speakers for its lecture series and for the commencement address, as well as for symposia and other events. Researchers will be interested to know that among the speakers represented, in addition to College presidents and faculty, are (in date order) Pete Seeger, Cesar Chavez, Desmond Tutu, Gunnar Birkerts, Eugene McCarthy, Benjamin Zander, Nat Brandt, Angela Davis, Kwame Toure, Sister Helen Prejean, Gary Wills, Richard Haas, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Elizabeth Drew, John Adams, V.S. Ramachandran, Stephen Carter, Martha Nussbaum, Paul Krugman, Sherman Alexie, Martin McGuinness, Nikki Giovanni, Christopher Edley, Jr., Julian Bond, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Lynn Margulis, Donald Byrd, Jonathan Schell, Dennis Kucinich, Billy Collins, David Brooks, Tony Kushner, Lawrence D. Bobo, Bill McKibbin, and many others.
