The public can now dive back into the WGLT audio archives thanks to a grant-funded digitization effort that brings Illinois State University’s NPR station into the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.
Over 500 audio interviews, stories, and other local features from WGLT (from around 1973 to 1999) are now available to the public through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH in Boston.
WGBH Archives received an AAPB Mellon Grant to digitize public broadcasting materials. University Archivist April Anderson from ISU’s Dr. Jo Ann Rayfield Archives at Milner Library successfully got WGLT’s archival material selected for the project. WGLT’s old audio tapes were digitized, organized, and made available for free on-demand listening through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.
This is not the first collaboration between WGLT and ISU’s Dr. Jo Ann Rayfield Archives. The archive also includes a digital collection of WGLT annual reports and program guides dating back to the 1960s.
WGLT, Bloomington-Normal’s Public Media, is part of the NPR Network licensed to and operating from Illinois State University in Normal. WGLT is McLean County’s leader in local news, and also provides the highest quality national and international news via the NPR Network. Award-winning local news is featured in the weekday morning podcast The Leadoff, and in the weekday evening newsmagazine Sound Ideas. WGLT champions independent nonprofit journalism as our public service duty with on-air and digital content freely available to all who want it at 89.1 FM, WGLT.org, the NPR App, Facebook and Instagram.
