[78-L] Large University Throwing away records?

[Ronald Lees]

I went to look at a "small" 78 collection last week and when I arrived the
seller told me that her father just recently picked these records out of a
dumpster at Harvard. I started looking at them and many of them had stickers
on the sleeves showing archive and catalog numbers. In addition there were
many acetates of Harvard choirs, bands conductors etc. as well as a few "Ivy
League" 78s of the Harvard University Bands.

 

I couldn't believe that a university such as Harvard (or any) would be
throwing out records. I spoke with the sellers father for a few minutes
before I left and he told me that Harvard was going digital and when the
people he was working with (I think he was working construction on site) saw
the records in the dumpsters they were all scrambling to get their hands on
some. He was only able to get a few hundred but there were some nice records
there.a few blues some real nice jazz and classical and of course some
broken records as well.

 

Has anybody heard of a similar situation before with a university?

 

Ron