The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) Radio Collection, one of the largest single collections of broadcast recordings (150,000 discs) in the United States, was donated to the Library in 1978. The collection contains all genres of radio from the early 1930s through the late 1960s, including comedy, drama, public affairs, musical variety, sports, news, information, and international shortwave broadcasts. Everything recorded through 1953, plus a selection of programs after 1953, has been preserved and is cataloged on SONIC, which contains more than 68,000 NBC bibliographic records and permits searching by program title, name, date, genre, keyword, shelf number, and some subjects. An inventory (brief catalog records) of the remainder of the collection can be consulted in the reference center. The publication Radio Broadcasts in the Library of Congress, 1924-1941 (Washington: Library of Congress, 1982; Z663.36.R32 1982) and the recorded sound card catalog supplement also provide some access to NBC programs.

Because topical access is limited, you should have a fairly good idea beforehand of particular names or NBC programs that interest you. Prior research and advance preparation will save time and make searching the collection easier. Discographic access to the NBC Radio Collection is not yet comprehensive, so the best available source of information about the content of the discs is the card catalog compiled by NBC for nearly forty years and other files and documentation that came with the collection. Together, the NBC catalog and files are the single most complete written record of American broadcasting content in the collections of the Library of Congress.