(SINGING) Little boxes in the archive Little boxes made by Hollinger Little boxes in the archives Little boxes, all the same There's a gray one and a gray one Then a gray one and a gray one And they're all made out of cardboard and they all are acid-free [MUSIC PLAYING]

CHARLIE BENNETT: You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show.

I'm Charlie Bennett, in the studio with Fred Rascoe, Marlee Givens, Cody Turner and a guest about to be named.

Each week, on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk.

Whichever you tune in for, we hope you dig it.

MARLEE GIVENS: Our show today is called Down in the Basement.

This is part 10 of our GT Library Guidebook.

FRED RASCOE: During the spring and fall semesters, on the first Friday of each month, we visit a site in the guidebook and talk about a space, or service, in the Georgia Tech Library.

MARLEE GIVENS: And our site today is, well, the basement.

If you take the elevator all the way to the bottom of the Crosland Tower, you can find, among other things, the basement stacks.

CHARLIE BENNETT: And the basement stacks are pretty special.

We have archives collections in three different buildings, but the basement stacks have the items that are the most important, or at least, the most used.

FRED RASCOE: And our songs today are about basements, surprises, basements keeping things safe, basements creating new things.

Basements, lots of basements.

CHARLIE BENNETT: How many basements?

FRED RASCOE: Lots.

There's lots of basements in this music.

Only one in the library, though.

Let's start by taking a trip to the mysterious floor at the bottom of the building.

This is Down in the Basement, by Turn to Crime, right here, on Lost in the Stacks.

[TURN TO CRIME, "DOWN IN THE BASEMENT"] That was Down in the Basement by Turn to Crime.

Our show today is called Down in the Basement.

It's part 10 in our Georgia Tech Library Guidebook series.

MARLEE GIVENS: On the first Friday of each month, we visit a site from the guidebook, featuring a space or service in the GT Library.

Our guide today is past and future guest Alex Brinson, the Reference Archivist at the Georgia Tech Library.

Welcome back to the show, Alex.

ALEX BRINSON: Hi, thanks for having me.

CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, let's start with the actual physical space of the basement stacks.

And even more so, take us on a trip from the reading room.

If you have to go to the basement stacks, what happens?

Tell us what you see, where you go, all that kind of stuff.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah so if you go down the elevator, down to the basement, in Crosland Tower, the first thing you'll probably encounter, we have a basement classroom, where our instruction archivist does all of the archival classes.

And then, even more interesting, I guess I should say, and where I spend most of my time, are in the closed stacks.

And this is where we keep our most used collections.

We have stacks.

We have the flat files, which are the oversized folders that hold, like, blueprints.

And then, even more not secretive, but just even more locked down, is our vault where we keep our super, I guess, more expensive, more intriguing items.

We have our rare book collection there, and our lunar sample would live there, if it weren't on display.

And we also have an Oscar, that would be located in there.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I have actually held that Oscar.

FRED RASCOE: Yeah, yeah, me too.

But is the vault, like, is it a big metal door, a combination that you have to put into?

ALEX BRINSON: Yes, and only-- [LAUGHS] Well, I mean, it's not a huge one.

But it's a little section off to the side.

Only some of us in the department have access to it.

So all of the archival staff have access to the basement.

But then, even a smaller section of us can access the materials in the vault.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Now, when I go down to the basement to get a little peace and quiet, there's some couches there and some artwork.

ALEX BRINSON: Oh, yeah.

CHARLIE BENNETT: And it's very regular.

It's just kind of a lobby.

Where are these stacks hidden?

Because I don't think I've been in there.

ALEX BRINSON: It's behind another door.

[LAUGHS] Actually, it's two doors.

There's one door, and then there's another door you have to access to get to our closed stacks.

CHARLIE BENNETT: So this isn't public at all?

ALEX BRINSON: No.

It should be that only certain people in the library can get down to the basement, because we obviously have folks that live down there.

[LAUGHS] Work down there.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I'm sure someone lives down there.

Yeah, we just haven't met them yet.

ALEX BRINSON: That work down there as well.

But then, we have further access controls at our stack door.

FRED RASCOE: It's important to note, I think, for anybody listening in the Georgia Tech student community, that the basement is not open just to any, like-- of course, the stack, the basement vault and stacks are just archivists.

But only librarians can get to that couch area that you're talking about.

CHARLIE BENNETT: We have to be careful, though, Fred.

FRED RASCOE: Yeah.

CHARLIE BENNETT: We can't say it too much because then, it's a challenge.

FRED RASCOE: Oh, yeah.

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, that's true.

That's true.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Kind of like the stack before.

FRED RASCOE: I guess.

It's like the Streisand effect.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Right.

[LAUGHS]

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, I'll say, if you take a class led by an archivist, then, you'll get to--

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, you'll get a peek.

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah.

ALEX BRINSON: For sure.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Not in the stacks though, right?

ALEX BRINSON: No, probably not in the stacks.

MARLEE GIVENS: No, but the basement floor.

ALEX BRINSON: But you'll see the basement floor, for sure.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah.

OK, the show is called Lost in the Stacks.

And we're saying stacks, stack, stacks.

And I just realized something.

Some people probably don't know what we're talking about.

So when you say the stacks are in the basement for archives, what are you talking about?

ALEX BRINSON: So we have shelves, like any shelving you would see in a library, but they might have a little bit more space on them because we, generally, we have books, but it's mostly archival boxes.

And so we have to have-- it's boxes on all the shelves from, basically, floor to ceiling.

CHARLIE BENNETT: And they're all gray, and they're all made by Hollinger.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, some are brown.

[LAUGHS] Some are brown and white, the banker's boxes.

But yeah, generally, gray.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I always imagine the archive stacks to be, like, an evidence room from a movie, with stuff just sitting on the shelves and all kinds of things.

Is it that cluttered at any place in the basement stacks, or is it mostly organized with the boxes?

ALEX BRINSON: It depends on what bay you're on because--

CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, OK.

ALEX BRINSON: So, like, different aisles, we call them bays.

And some are processed, ready, they're used.

And then, some bays are a little bit more messy, because that's where we keep some of our exhibit stuff that's in and out.

Or when we accession new collections, sometimes those boxes end up on a certain bay, where we're in between working on them.

So those can be a little bit messier.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, can you see the whole basement stacks from one place?

How big is this room.

ALEX BRINSON: It's actually, probably not the largest I've been in, because at my-- a few job roles ago, their stacks were-- and they didn't have any off-site locations.

So everything was in one room and it was a little bit larger.

So it's not huge, but it's good for what we have.

We haven't run out of space in there yet.

So that is a good thing.

CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS] Knock on wood.

ALEX BRINSON: We're good on space right now, because we even have storage of unused boxes.

We have some processing space for our interns and then, me, of course, and other folks that are processing collections down there.

FRED RASCOE: Compared to a typical college classroom that seats about 30 people, it's about that size, a little bigger?

ALEX BRINSON: Maybe two classrooms?

Because I'm trying to picture our basement classroom.

It might be, like, a few classrooms.

FRED RASCOE: Right.

I want to picture, like, the Indiana Jones warehouse, in my mind.

I know that's--

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, but we've already talked about that warehouse.

That's on the other side of town.

ALEX BRINSON: If you've been to the LSC, it's not that level of large.

FRED RASCOE: Well, we'll talk about other aspects of the basement.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and we'll be back with more after a music set.

MARLEE GIVENS: File this set under CD 30233.p83.

[ETTA JAMES AND SUGAR PIE DESANTO, "IN THE BASEMENT, PART 1"] [CLOSE LOBSTERS, "NEVER SEEN BEFORE"] Never Seen Before by the Close Lobsters.

And before that, "In The Basement, Part 1," by Etta James and Sugar Pie DeSanto.

Songs about surprises waiting for you, especially in basements.

[MUSIC PLAYING] This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called Down in the Basement.

It's part 10 in our GT Library Guidebook series.

FRED RASCOE: And our guest today is Alex Brinson, the reference archivist at the Georgia Tech Library.

She's our guide for the basement stacks, one of the storage locations for Georgia Tech archives and special collections.

It's a storage location.

But under what circumstances would you, as a reference archivist, find yourself down in the basement stacks?

ALEX BRINSON: So when we get requests for archival materials, they can be in a few locations.

But most of the time, they'll be in our closed stacks.

And so that's when I would go retrieve materials from down there, for researchers, and bring them back up to our reading room space, which is where everyone would use the materials.

FRED RASCOE: OK.

So it's controlled down in the basement, controlled access, controlled climate.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

FRED RASCOE: So what's it like bringing that item to the reading room?

How do folks interact with it there?

ALEX BRINSON: So it depends actually, because there's a whole process when we pull things from the vault.

When we pull rare books from the vault, they actually have to acclimate to the space in the stacks.

FRED RASCOE: You can't just pull a rare book off the shelf and bring it upstairs?

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, even it's even colder in the vault, so we have to first let it acclimate downstairs, in the stacks, and then we can bring it up to the location.

CHARLIE BENNETT: When you said it's even colder in the vault, how cold is the basement?

ALEX BRINSON: Ooh, I'm going to-- I might botch this.

CHARLIE BENNETT: It's OK to describe it in terms of feelings.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, yeah.

CHARLIE BENNETT: It's like a fall day?

It's like a winter day?

[LAUGHS]

ALEX BRINSON: I mean, it should be like-- it should be a fall day.

You shouldn't be freezing, but it should be on the cooler side.

And then, it's actually, physically colder.

You can feel the difference in the vault.

You might need a sweater.

And you don't want the door to jam on you because then, you'll maybe freeze.

CHARLIE BENNETT: So bringing a book out of the vault is kind of like bringing a diver up from deep sea diving?

You have to let them depressurize?

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, it's like, I would say, I think it's about 30 minutes that we have to let it kind of acclimate to the stacks, and then we can bring it up.

Just because if you-- I think if, now, I'm not the rare book expert, but I think if you try to just open the book immediately out of the stacks, you could probably damage the spine.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Ugh, don't even say it.

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, and it's not just the temperature.

It's the humidity, right?

ALEX BRINSON: Yes.

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, and those changes in humidity can cause the paper to swell and contract and all of that.

So yeah, being careful.

ALEX BRINSON: And we have alarms that we get notifications if the humidity is changing in those spaces.

I mostly get it for our reading room, but different folks in the department have the different alarms based on their spaces.

CHARLIE BENNETT: So long time listeners have heard about the chilled water emergency.

ALEX BRINSON: Yes.

[LAUGHS]

CHARLIE BENNETT: I forget, was the basement stacks on its own HVAC, or did you have to clear it out?

ALEX BRINSON: Yes, we have our own system so luckily, we just had to worry about the materials that were spread around the library.

So we had to go into folks offices and bring things down.

CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS]

ALEX BRINSON: Which is part of the reason why I try not to work on materials outside of the basement.

I do a lot of my processing down there.

We have a good space now with desks, and our supplies are down there as well.

So you don't have to do a lot of running around to grab folders, boxes, whatnot.

It's all kind of in one space.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Is it well lit?

ALEX BRINSON: I would say so, yes.

CHARLIE BENNETT: OK.

ALEX BRINSON: I will say, the energy saving, of the lights going off on you, that happens quite a bit.

So that's not fun--

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, because there's no windows.

ALEX BRINSON: --because being in a dark space.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah.

ALEX BRINSON: I will say, don't ever go down there without a phone or a flashlight.

CHARLIE BENNETT: [LAUGHS]

ALEX BRINSON: I have been, not in this space, but in past close stacks, stuck without a light.

And you're kind of feeling along the wall, trying to get to the door.

FRED RASCOE: It's like a start of a horror movie.

ALEX BRINSON: [LAUGHS] Yeah, yeah, definitely.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Or the end of one.

[LAUGHS] So do you ever get surprise rare book requests, or is that usually lead time?

ALEX BRINSON: Surprise rare book requests, we don't accept those.

We need at least, I think it's like, 48 hours in advance.

But we will take pop in requests for our other materials, like university archives things and things that are in the regular doc boxes downstairs.

And so in that case, a lot of the times, we have to get coverage for the reading room so that person can go down to the stacks and retrieve the materials for the patron.

CHARLIE BENNETT: And what are you going down with?

Are you going down with an aisle number, a bay number and a box number?

How do you find stuff?

ALEX BRINSON: So there's bay, range and shelf.

And so that's how you would locate items, in a similar way that, I guess, librarians would have a call number.

We have a bay range and shelf.

And then, you would probably need the box number, of course.

And barcodes really help too.

MARLEE GIVENS: And then, you bring the whole box, right?

ALEX BRINSON: Yes.

MARLEE GIVENS: So if someone just wants to see a letter, you bring the whole box that the letter is part of.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm, yeah.

And a lot of the times, you have folks that are interested in multiple things in that one box.

So that helps too, because a lot of the times, they will be kind of grouped together that way.

CHARLIE BENNETT: So this is totally minutia.

But when you said like a librarian with a call number, the distinct difference is, the call numbers are what line the books up in a certain order.

And then, they can move wherever they move in the library.

And as long as they stay in that order, you can follow the line.

ALEX BRINSON: Right.

CHARLIE BENNETT: But you all have to map out the stacks.

You have to know the location.

Have you had to rearrange the basement stacks?

ALEX BRINSON: Not since I've been here.

We've had space ever since I've been here, so we haven't had to do things, like, oh, we have to send some of this stuff off-site and make room.

But yeah, luckily, I think we had a big move of our flat files at one point, and that was a major project of making sure things, locations were changed in A Space.

I think we still have some things that slip through the cracks, that we're kind of like, where is this?

Because it has the old location on it.

CHARLIE BENNETT: You just said in A Space?

ALEX BRINSON: ArchivesSpace.

CHARLIE BENNETT: OK.

ALEX BRINSON: That is our catalog, I guess you could say.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I feel vaguely like we're doing multiverse stuff all of a sudden.

ALEX BRINSON: [LAUGHS]

CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, let's get into that on the other side of the break.

You are listening to Lost in the Stacks.

We'll hear more about the basement stacks, the flat files, A Space, all kinds of stuff, on the left side of the hour.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MICHELE CASTO: This is Michele Casto, from the DC Punk Archive at DC Public library.

You're listening to Lost in the Stacks, on WREK Atlanta.

[RITES OF SPRING, "DRINK DEEP] (SINGING) Drink deep, it's just a taste And it might not come this way again

CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's show is called Down in the Basement.

It is a GT Library Guidebook episode about the basement stacks of the archives.

Now, some of you have been listening a long time.

You know I have a weakness for French postmodern philosophers, and I use the word weakness with no irony whatsoever.

There are a few of those lunatics who wrote about archives.

I won't attempt to parse Derrida, but I would like to read from an article entitled, Analysis of Derrida's Archive Fever, by Nasrullah Mambrol.

This is from 2018.

"An archive took place as an event because it could be kept in place, both physically and politically.

This place, however, is more complex than might at first be thought.

This is because the archive worked by storing data by placing it under the control of the archons," that's archivists, "and by situating it in a private space that at the same time, had a degree of public access." Michael Lynch explains, "The classical archive is in certain respects like the Cartesian mind, in that it is domiciled in a private space and controlled by a person who dwells in that space.

There's one big difference, though.

An archive, though guarded, is a public space." That's easier than Derrida, right?

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I mean, compare that passage I just read to this bit from the actual talk, Archive Fever.

"There, we said, and in that place, how are we to think of there?

And this taking place, or this having a place, this taking the place one has of the archive." That's some Derrida.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

CHARLIE BENNETT: File this set under PZ3-R7-26.

[THE RAMONES, "I DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN TO THE BASEMENT"] [KING KHAN AND THE SHRINES, "HOW CAN I KEEP YOU OUT OF HARMS WAY"] That was How Can I Keep You Out of Harm's Way, by King Khan and The Shrines.

Before that, Vault, by Marnie Stern.

And we started with, I Don't Want to Go Down to the Basement, by The Ramones, which I think we were legally required to play in the show.

[LAUGHS] Those were songs about protection, safety, and basements.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

FRED RASCOE: This is Lost in the Stacks, and you are listening to part 10 of our series, The Georgia Tech Library Guidebook.

Today's episode is all about the basement stacks, one of archives collection spots.

MARLEE GIVENS: Our guest today is Alex Brinson, Reference Archivist at the Georgia Tech Library.

And I think we all kind of perked up when you mentioned that there are some desks down there, and that you do some work down there.

So yeah, tell us what you do when you are working in the basement.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, those are some new additions within the last year, year and a half.

And it allows us to actually process collections in the space, which is like going through our donations and describing them so that folks can actually use the materials and find things.

Because previously, before the desks, we would work in our offices, which is not ideal if there's some kind of outage or something, or use our classroom space, which is kind of nice too, because we can spread out in there.

But it's nice to have everything in one place now.

MARLEE GIVENS: I do kind of remember there being processing happening in the classroom.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, yeah, I've seen those tables stacked with books.

I have commandeered one section of the warehouse library records center, which has all the stuff I'm working on, a couple different donations and a whole bunch of books I have to send to Better World Book's.

Don't tell Nick.

MARLEE GIVENS: Right.

ALEX BRINSON: That's also a good place to work, though.

Like, not really a lot of people over there.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Not a lot of people at all.

[LAUGHS]

ALEX BRINSON: Great place to lock in.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I've played Black Sabbath pretty loud while I was working more than a few times.

You've said flat files a couple times.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I do want to get at that.

Tell us what the flat files are and why you have to make sure they're all in the right place.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, so they're, essentially, like, if you think about drawers, and we have oversized folders.

How do I describe them?

They're awkward to pull out of that space too.

FRED RASCOE: You were moving your arms like three feet.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, it was like, basically, yes.

They're like these big drawing plans, think, like, the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill.

The exhibit, we had a lot of materials that are in the flat files.

And so when folks ask for architectural collections, a lot of times, we're pulling them from those flat files.

CHARLIE BENNETT: This is like flat files, as opposed to hanging files.

Stuff that's too big, that you have to lay down flat to keep it safe.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, they have to sit flat because I think it's not ideal, preservation wise, to keep them rolled up because they kind of crumble over time.

So it's good to have them flat.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah.

ALEX BRINSON: And they're heavier than you think too.

You can probably only move about one to two, I would say, two to three max at a time.

And we have these really large folders that Kirk Henderson has created for us, that we stick the folders, the oversized folders in, sandwich them in these foam boards so we can more easily move them upstairs.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, so they'll be supported when you're walking around?

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

When we lift them, yes.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I'm getting kind of a Marx brothers routine in my head over that, like moving the flat files around, that kind of thing.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, and space wise, it can be a little awkward pulling those drawers out, and you're backed up against the shelf.

But we make it work.

I think we have a good system going.

CHARLIE BENNETT: So in the last couple minutes of this segment, let's get a little silly.

You've talked about the problems of having to pull things, of having to cover the desk and all that.

Do you have any ideas of what a better system of retrieving from the basement stacks might be?

ALEX BRINSON: Um, silly or serious?

I would--

CHARLIE BENNETT: If you could do both, that'd be awesome.

[LAUGHS]

ALEX BRINSON: Right now, our solution has been to try to anticipate folks coming in.

So when people request items, asking them for at least a day that they're thinking about coming in, so we can anticipate and pull things at the beginning of the day to already have them in the room.

Silly, I would love my own personal elevator.

[LAUGHS] It would just be so much quicker, because when the library gets busy, it can take a while to wait on an elevator.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, I'm picturing those three elevators that are right in front of the reading room.

And if I stay later than normal, like, just get to like,

5:30 or 6:00, you can wait a long time for an elevator that's not packed.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm.

MARLEE GIVENS: Mhm.

CHARLIE BENNETT: And having to roll a cart into one of those might be trouble.

ALEX BRINSON: Mhm, everyone has to get real tight and squeeze.

[LAUGHS]

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, because you do have to take the cart down.

I was thinking, like, a person who doesn't have to carry anything can go outside, go down one set of stairs, and go down another set of stairs.

But if you've got to take a cart, you have to get in--

ALEX BRINSON: Or one of those oversized folders.

MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah, exactly.

ALEX BRINSON: That's, you need, basically, the whole elevator.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Has anybody tried to get into the basement, like, when you've gone down there?

Have you had students try to explore the basement?

ALEX BRINSON: It's mostly peeking their head, like, I didn't know there was another floor.

You're like, yes, this is the basement.

[LAUGHS] This is where archival collections and our basement classroom live.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah.

So if you're a student listening, that time that someone looked at you and said, this elevator is going down.

ALEX BRINSON: Yes.

[LAUGHS]

CHARLIE BENNETT: And you thought, there's no way I'm on the ground floor.

FRED RASCOE: I'm on the ground floor.

This is it.

Nope, there's one more floor.

CHARLIE BENNETT: He was heading to the basement.

This is Lost in the Stacks.

And today, we went down to the basement for the GT Library Guidebook.

MARLEE GIVENS: Our guest was Alex Brinson, Reference Archivist at the Georgia Tech Library.

Thank you for being on the show.

ALEX BRINSON: Thank you for having me.

FRED RASCOE: File this set under TH-4816.3.B35F45.

[GHOST MOTEL, "STAY OUT OF THE BASEMENT"] - Weird sounds are coming from Casey and Margaret's basement.

- What's that noise?

- Dad's acting a bit strange.

[THE B-52S, "LEGAL TENDER"] FRED RASCOE: Legal Tender, by the B-52s.

And before that, Stay Out of the Basement, by Ghost Motel.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Creepy.

FRED RASCOE: Songs about creating new things in a workspace down in the basement.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CHARLIE BENNETT: Today's episode of the GT Library Guidebook, 10 episodes already.

MARLEE GIVENS: Mhm.

CHARLIE BENNETT: This thing is just trucking.

MARLEE GIVENS: It's a paper anniversary.

[LAUGHS]

CHARLIE BENNETT: Perfect.

This episode was called Down in the Basement.

And speaking of paper, speaking of what you might find and cherish.

Here's what I want to know.

What do you hope is down in the basement.

stacks?

And Alex, you get to play too, although, you kind of have an advantage.

But what do you wish was down there, in the archives collection, in the basement stacks?

For me, I've been thinking about this ever since we did that notebook age episode.

I'd like there to be personal journals down there.

I think that's one of the coolest primary sources out there, especially because some of it's useless.

You know, like, rain today, feeling tired, stomach hurts.

OK.

But then also, you can find those entries that someone put down their thoughts and feelings about some very particular day, that's important now.

How about you, Fred?

FRED RASCOE: Well, we're here in College Radio Studio, and there's, with all the microphones and boards and everything, there's also some other stuff, including right at our feet, there's a box of old digital tapes of live shows that happened at WREK in the 90s.

It's just, like, sitting right there.

It spans, like, Car Versus Driver.

I think DQE is in there.

I'll have to have a look to see what else is in there, but I would like to see those preserved in the archive for posterity.

Cody

CODY TURNER: I'm sure this is very niche and doesn't exist, but what I would really love to find down there, if there was, like, a written record, maybe a journal of, like, the first time that a professor had to confront their class about cheating on an exam.

Whereas today, they always do the statistical analysis and show the charts.

At some point, someone had to do that by hand and go in there into the class with the written record.

And I would love to see how that went down.

ALEX BRINSON: I'll go.

Similar to Cody, I'd like to see more of our contemporary student groups represented in the archives.

CHARLIE BENNETT: That's an archivist answer.

ALEX BRINSON: Yeah, and just thinking about the future more.

Yeah, I would just love to see all of these cool groups that are sprouting up, that are only a few years old maybe.

Let us take care of their materials.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Marlee, how about you?

MARLEE GIVENS: Ghosts.

[LAUGHS]

CHARLIE BENNETT: There's nothing more to say after that.

FRED RASCOE: How do we know that they're not there already?

Roll the credits.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MARLEE GIVENS: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library.

Written and produced by Alex McGee, Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Legal counsel and a rolling rare book acclamation vault were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group, in Atlanta, Georgia.

FRED RASCOE: Special thanks to Alex for being on the show, to all the archives, records management, and digital curation folks for everything they do.

And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Our web page is library.gatech.e du/lostinthestacks, where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to our podcast feed, and a web form, if you want to get in touch with us.

MARLEE GIVENS: Next week, Philip Burrus himself, returns to the show.

Or maybe he's sending an AI simulation.

I guess we'll find out.

FRED RASCOE: Yikes.

Time for our last song today.

Sometimes, things that start with just a trip to the basement can lead to fascinating discoveries and rewarding creative projects.

So let's close with a song about using the basement as a launching pad to success.

CHARLIE BENNETT: I just want to say, I don't agree with this at all.

FRED RASCOE: This is, Down in the Basement, by Sloan, right here, on Lost in the Stacks.

CHARLIE BENNETT: Just seems very creepy to me.

FRED RASCOE: Have a great weekend, everybody.

[SLOAN, "DOWN IN THE BASEMENT"]