VERBATIM ceased publishing in 2008

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ERBATIM: The Language Quarterly began as a simple six-page pamphlet in 1974, a project launched by lexicographer Laurence Urdang as content marketing — before that was ever a term — for his reference-book publishing company. The quarterly soon outgrew that narrow focus, and within a few years was as many as thirty-two pages jam-packed with “recreational linguistics” articles by scholars, lexicographers, and other word enthusiasts, plus word puzzles and book reviews.

Now you can find the entire run of the journal on the Internet Archive, under a Creative Commons license. The 125 issues are full-text searchable, and can be viewed online or downloaded as PDFs.

VERBATIM ceased publishing in 2008, but photo restoration service of what it published remains evergreen. Although the journal is available in hard copy in many libraries, having it available via the Internet Archive makes it far more accessible to language enthusiasts! (Many thanks to Kay Savetz of the Archive, who volunteered to scan the paper copies.)

In addition to the new scans at the Archive, the VERBATIM website has relaunched with plain-text versions of the issues, and a full professional index. VERBATIM is now part of Wordnik Society, the 501c3 nonprofit that runs the online English language dictionary Wordnik.com.

A portion of the front page of Verbatim, December 1977 issue. Shows a stylized VERBATIM logo and the headline "We Do Not Only Talk With Our Mouths" - the cover article by Walburga von Raffler-Engel of Vanderbilt University
Posted in News | Tagged Creative Commons, journal, language, newsletter | 1 Reply
College Radio’s Rich Legacy: Latest Updates from DLARC
Posted on December 19, 2024 by kaysavetz
Highlights include 1980s radio interviews with LL Cool J, Sonic Youth and more, 1960s amateur radio footage, college radio oral histories, and radio station correspondence from the 1940s-1960s

By Jennifer Waits, Curator of the DLARC College Radio Collection

Feast your eyes and ears on the latest additions to the college radio collection within the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications! Over the past few months we’ve added materials from numerous college radio stations and archives, including vintage and contemporary audio, film, and video pieces.

Recruitment flyer from New York University college radio station WNYU
Most recently, the archivists at New York University student radio station WNYU-FM have contributed a number of 1980s radio interviews with music luminaries, including LL Cool J, ESG, members of Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore in 1984 and Kim Gordon in 1986), Billy Idol, and Jello Biafra. Also in the WNYU collection is audio from the station’s inaugural FM broadcast in 1973, plus paper items like program guides, flyers, and correspondence.

Another “first” broadcast recording, from campus-only AM station WWEC in 1963, is part of the Elizabethtown College Radio collection. Adding even more context to the story of radio on this Pennsylvania-based college campus is a collection of interviews conducted in 2014-2015 as part of the WWEC Oral History Project. Other WWEC items include station meeting minutes, history documents and a Top 30 list from 1974. Elizabethtown College’s radio efforts were also represented by work done by its publicity office. Hundreds of pages of scripts for the shows “Campus Calling” and “From the Elizabethtown College Campus,” are other new additions to DLARC.

As was the case at Elizabethtown College, Auburn University also produced promotional radio programs that aired on local stations. Among the items that we’ve added from Auburn University are more than 2,000 installments of the weekly radio show “AU Profiles,” airchecks and shows recorded at student radio station WEGL, and a set of interviews about the history of WEGL.

But perhaps my favorite recent audio-visual addition is a compilation of 1960s home movies that document activities of University of Pennsylvania’s amateur radio club. They reside in our new Penn Amateur Radio Club archive, which collects items from this historically-significant club that began as the Wireless Club of the University of Pennsylvania in 1909. Early student wireless clubs were the incubators for future broadcast stations, so we hope to increase the representation of both high school and collegiate amateur radio clubs in DLARC.

Another area of curatorial interest is college radio at women’s colleges, especially since many women’s colleges built radio stations during the early carrier current boom in the 1940s and 1950s. DLARC’s new Smith College Radio Club and Stations collection provides context for understanding the college radio landscape during this time and what it was like for new stations trying to get their start. Within the collection are numerous folders full of correspondence, items from college radio conferences (including one hosted by Smith College station WCSR), organizational documents, scripts, and program schedules. Newer materials include flyers and program guides from the currently operating FM station at Smith: WOZQ-FM.