DLARC Adds Over 1,300 Items to New College Radio Collection

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By Jennifer Waits, Curator of the DLARC College Radio Collection

In fall 2023, after learning about the amazing breadth of The Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications (DLARC), I started to dream about what a college radio version of that collection would look like. I shared with curator Kay Savetz some of my “wish-list” items, which developed into a plan to develop a college radio collection within DLARC.

Cover of the February 1967 issue of College Radio magazine. A large image shows a woman and a man using a large radio control board.

Launched in February 2024, DLARC’s college radio collection now contains more than 1,300 items related to student radio’s past and present. Materials in the collection include ‘zines, radio station program guides, flyers, playlists, correspondence, books, academic theses, magazines, and more. 

Publication highlights include KDViationS, the ‘zine/program guide produced by student radio station KDVS at UC Davis; RiFLe from University of Kentucky’s college radio station WRFL; and program guides from WHRB (Harvard), KUCI (UC Irvine), and WMBR (MIT).

Additionally, we’ve created a handful of radio station collections for KFJC (Foothill College), WKNC (North Carolina State University), WTUL (Tulane University) and WSUA/WCDB (University at Albany). Take a trip back in time to find 1970s “music surveys,” punk flyers from the 1980s, radio station handbooks, brochures, and other ephemera.

College radio’s storied history stretches back to the early days of radio, with the first student stations launching in the 1920s. One of the initial goals of DLARC’s college radio collection is to locate items from not only the early days of college radio, but also from long-standing college radio trade organizations like The Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). Established in 1940, IBS began as a trade organization for campus-only AM carrier-current radio stations. It has been producing newsletters, publications, educational manuals, and conferences since its inception. 

Despite IBS’ long history, it does not maintain its own archive; so it’s significant that we have built an Intercollegiate Broadcasting System collection within DLARC’s college radio collection. Now at over 200 items, the IBS materials include conference guides, promotional pieces, IBS newsletters from the 1950s, 1960s-era correspondence with radio stations, and nearly 80 issues of College Radio/The Journal of College Radio from 1966 to 1982. Full of station profiles, FCC updates, music industry reports, engineering tips, and more; College Radio/The Journal of College Radio was produced from 1965 to the early 1990s. We are still filling in gaps in the collection and are searching for more issues of this publication, as well as IBS’ earlier publications from the 1940s and 1950s (IBS Bulletin and IBS Newsletter).

DLARC College Radio also includes collections for two other student broadcasting organizations:  The National Association of College Broadcasters (which existed from 1988 to 1998) and College Broadcasters Inc. (1999 to present). 

These materials give scholars and college radio enthusiasts a richer picture of the history of college radio and the ways that student radio practitioners have intersected with both the broader radio community and music culture. If you have college radio materials that you’d like to donate to DLARC, please reach out!

The Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications is funded by a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to create a free digital library for the radio community, researchers, educators, and students. DLARC invites radio clubs, radio stations, archives and individuals to submit material in any format. To contribute or ask questions about the project, contact: Kay Savetz at kay@archive.org.