College & Research Libraries News vol. 83, no. 10 (November 2022)


November 2022 464C&RL News 

David Free G r a n t s  a n d  A c q u i s i t i o n s

The Library of Congress has acquired the full body of radio producer and sound 
recordist Jim Metzner’s work, including photographs, handwritten journals, podcasts, sto-
rybooks, and, of course, his thousands of recordings. The acquisition commenced shortly 
before the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. In total, the collection holds approximately 
28,000 mixed material items from the 1970s to 2019. For nearly 50 years, Metzner has 
explored and celebrated the universe of sound around the world, most famously in his 
nationally distributed daily radio series Pulse of the Planet, which concluded a 34-year, 
8,000-program run on public and commercial radio June 3, 2022, while continuing as a 
monthly podcast. Metzner’s collection complements the library’s extensive radio collections 
and perhaps has the most in common with the Tony Schwartz Collection, which preserves 
the work of another audio and broadcast pioneer who explored the world in sound. Both 
Metzner and Schwartz lent ears and gave voice to the mundane and exotic all around them 
and masterfully intertwined interviews, soundscapes, and narration in their audio essays. 
Fittingly, the Metzner Collection includes an interview with Schwartz.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recently announced awards total-
ing $3,970,069 in Museum Grants for African American History and Culture. The grants 
support activities that build the capacity of African American museums and support the 
growth and development of museum professionals at African American museums. Grant 
recipients include the Whitney Plantation Museum, which will create an exhibition and 
related programming focusing on resistance and freedom-seeking in south Louisiana before 
and during the Civil War; the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center to iden-
tify, map, and interpret the history of African American land ownership and residential life 
in central Virginia from 1744 through 2020; and the Louis Armstrong House Museum, 
which will catalog, digitize, and preserve multiple collections housed at the Louis Arm-
strong Archives.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has additionally announced 24 
grants totaling $2,194,142 to support Indian tribes and organizations that primarily serve 
and represent Native Hawaiians. Grant recipients include the San Carlos Apache Tribe, 
which will develop and offer programming to reintroduce traditional Apache games to 
tribal youth and families; the Three Chiefs Culture Center of the Confederated Salish and 
Kootenai Tribes, which will restore and rehouse artifacts damaged by an arson fire in 2020; 
and the Sealaska Heritage Institute, which will enhance digital preservation practices and 
expand digital storage capacity to increase access to their Indigenous archives.