Finding 3: Reel to Reel Digitization

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Reel-to-Reel collection holds recordings of artists’ talks, symposia, lectures, interviews, and performances. Programs highlight artists such as Pablo Picasso, Vassily Kandinsky, Robert Motherwell, Juan Gris, and Vincent Van Gogh. Speakers include Thomas Messer, director of the Guggenheim Museum (1961–88), and Pulitzer prize-winning author and collector James Michener.

The reel-to-reels have valuable content, but are relatively inaccessible in their current format. To preserve the audio content, the Library and Archives Department was awarded a grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize the recordings. Safe Sound Archive, a nationally known vendor for audio preservation and reformatting, has been contracted to preserve and digitize the recordings. Once complete, all audio will be accessible for public research on site at the museum and select audio tracks will be available online.

—Martha Horan, archives assistant