For most effective use of the National Broadcasting Company Records, the researcher may find it helpful to take time for a preliminary understanding of the provenance and overall arrangement of the papers, as it was the original deposit agreement, the character of NBC's record practices, and the nature of the records themselves that determined many of the omissions and peculiarities of the collection.
During the 1940s NBC instituted a records management program, represented as the Central Files series, the purpose of which was to provide for centralized storage of papers not in everyday use and to provide for orderly destruction of documents after their value had ended (usually, but not always, after a retention period of seven years). Although the primary emphasis at NBC was on records disposal, throughout this period one group of papers was retained for its historic value; this is the portion of the collection now designated by the series Central Files. In 1958 NBC entered into an agreement with the Mass Communications History Center of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin whereby materials were made available to the center as they were authorized for destruction. Some types of documentation were specifically excluded, however, such as financial and legal records and David Sarnoff's papers. At no time was provision made for systematic, wholesale transfer of archival materials. This agreement was in force between 1958 and 1974, and during this period the center staff was free to make selections from the records which they deemed valuable. In some cases in which materials were routine or extensive only a sample was brought from the NBC offices in New York. Those materials not brought to the Society were destroyed by NBC. Thus the present collection represents not the complete NBC Archives, but rather a selection of papers from those records which were authorized for destruction and offered to the center during those years between 1958 and 1974.
With the exception of the script and recording library, the overall arrangement scheme of the collection corresponds closely to the arrangement of the papers under the NBC centralized storage program. There are some exceptions to this, but these primarily relate to the television network, the responsibility for which was moved repeatedly within the corporate structure. In these cases the records have been filed approximately as they would have been located within the corporate structure during the late 1950s. A researcher desiring a more detailed knowledge of corporate structure in historical perspective will find a number of charts and employee lists located in the Organizational Charts and Lists series (Box 1).
Differences between the three main series of the collection (CENTRAL FILES, OFFICE FILES, and SCRIPT AND RECORDING LIBRARY) are as follows:
- Central Files consist of older papers, primarily 1926-1942, with some items as late as 1950, in which the various offices have been integrated into five types of subject files (correspondence and departmental, historical, station, and television files)
- Office Files are more recent, primarily dating from the late 1940s and 1950s, and are functionally arranged
- Script and Recording Library is unsupported by any supplementary documentation
Each unit of the collection is separately described, with a contents list following. This description provides information on the records' creator, their scope and content, and any peculiarities of arrangement. Within each unit the materials have been subdivided in the manner which seemed most appropriate.
Arrangement within the Central Files is primarily chronological by year, and with the exception of the correspondence section, access is self-explanatory. For the correspondence section, there are two special indexes found in Appendices A and B. The correspondents index list includes substantive references which are not listed in the contents list under the correspondent's own name. The second index includes all scripts in the section, many of which were not aired or for which broadcast data could not be found.
Researchers using the Office Files will find that many of the same sub-categories appear repeatedly (advertisers, correspondents, departmental, program, subject, and station files). This scheme permits researchers to find a topic not only in its own functional location, but also to trace it in relation to other departments and divisions. The researcher interested in television news broadcasting in the 1950s, for example, will find the main records of news and special events executives and employees located in the Public Affairs Division, but further information can be found in other sections of the collection, and this information in some cases may fill in gaps within the primary records. Thus, some information on sales of the news programs to advertisers is located in the Television Network Sales Section and material on promotion of these programs may be found in the Public Relations Division. The same type of functional approach can be readily applied for tracing information on individuals or programs. In other cases, the researcher must be prepared to make other kinds of linkages. For example, significant amounts of program information is filed not under the name of the program or its star performer, but under the name of the sponsor or the advertising agency. Useful aids for obtaining such sponsor information are contained in the archival collections of A. C. Nielsen Company Reports, C. E. Hooper Inc. Records, and the Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting. Useful information can also be found in the Network Advertisers files in the Sackett D. Miles Papers portion of the NBC collection (Box 361-363), and in Harrison B. Summers' A Thirty Year History of Programs Carried on National Radio Networks in the United States, 1926-1956.
The Script Library is divided by radio and television sections, with individual programs arranged thereunder alphabetically by title. The only exception to this arrangement are those materials for which there was only a single broadcast. These titles are arranged alphabetically by name or supplied name under the heading “specials.” This is followed by the Recordings which are arranged under eleven broad topics that are further divided by program or topic.
