Leah E Simon, Center For Puerto Rican Studies, CENTRO, Fall 2024

Tuesday, Dec 17, 2024

CENTRO’s Ruth M. Reynolds Oral History collection includes 112 audio cassette tapes recorded over a series of 11 months with CENTRO archivist Blanca Vázquez between June of 1985 and May of 1986. Processed with grant funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the collection supports research in areas of Puerto Rican history and North American participation in international human rights. While not of Puerto Rican diaspora or descent,  Ruth M. Reynolds played an intimate role in furthering the development of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico and of the Puerto Rican Nationalist movement in the United States with her close affiliation to the movement’s leader, Pedro Albizu Campos and the movement’s organizing efforts in New York City. With the support of Marcos Sueiro Bal, additional MIAP internship supervisor, the internship allowed for a more hands-on and comprehensive overview of digital audio file quality control and asset management. This training included but was not limited to: review of techniques and methodologies for digital audiofile inspection after reformatting as well as the formatting of digital audio files for fixity checks. 

papers and other assorted items, closeup

CENTRO

Intern projects included item-level collection assessment of the Ruth M. Reynolds oral history materials in preparation for reformatting and digitization with a third-party vendor. This item-level collection assessment was conducted via a MIAP standardized audiovisual format guide and assessment template that was created by the intern for the inspection of each 112 audio cassette tapes in the collection. Focus was placed on audio cassettes, ¼” open-reel magnetic audio, optical media, as well as 8mm and 16mm motion picture projection. A final internship project included the research, formatting, and development of a CENTRO Library and Archives analog audio preservation and reformatting guide for current and future CENTRO volunteers and archivists. The physical condition of the Ruth M. Reynolds Oral History Collection has been well preserved by the archivists of CENTRO for nearly three decades.

person holding a reel of film

CENTRO