Mining the Peabody Archive

This paper provides an overview of the Peabody Collection of radio and television programs housed at the University of Georgia. The collection is one of the largest broadcast archives in the county, with holdings of more than 30,000 programs. Instructions are provided for scholars wishing to utilize this goldmine of early programming dating back to 1940 (for radio) and 1948 (for television). The archive's tie to the Peabody Awards process is detailed, because the connection impacts access procedures and speaks to the potential biases and strengths of the holdings. The unique advantages of the archive include the large cache of companion print materials and the wealth of public service and local programming. The limitations are discussed, primarily the time-consuming protocols necessary for locating programs of interest Scholarly work utilizing both radio and television materials from the archives is briefly noted.