DAHR now documents the recording activities of three early record companies: Victor Talking Machine Company, Columbia Records, and the Berliner Gramophone Co. It includes information on more than 100,000 master recordings (matrixes) and allows researchers and the public to study and explore the data through a unified interface. The database currently includes:
- Victor Talking Machine Company recordings made in the United States and in Central and South America before October 1930; releases derived from masters recorded in Europe by the Gramophone Company; and Victor trial recordings of new artists and sessions from which no discs were issued
- Columbia Records 10” domestic masters recorded between 1908 and 1925
- Berliner Gramophone Co. domestic recordings from 1892 to 1900
The discography is part of the American Discography Project (ADP), an initiative of the UCSB Library’s Special Collections Department. The ADP is also a partner with the Library of Congress National Jukebox project and provides most of the cataloging data used in the Jukebox. As a result of this partnership, 10,000 recordings made by Victor between 1900 and 1925 can be streamed online. The digitization of Columbia recordings between 1901 and 1925 is in progress and will be available for streaming on DAHR and on the National Jukebox website in the near future.
The ADP is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Packard Humanities Institute, the William R. Moran Fund for Recorded Sound, and the UCSB Library. We are also pleased to announce that the Packard Humanities Institute has renewed its support for the project through 2015 with a grant for $500,000. This grant will allow us to continue the expansion of the database to include other labels, such as Brunswick, Okeh, and others. Data will be added on an ongoing basis as editing is completed.
