Search

Audio, Digital, and Visual Material, and Artifacts (boxes 73-74) contains miscellaneous audio, digital, and visual materials, along with a few artifacts, from all editorial eras of the MED. These include: digital materials of Middle English texts, an hour-long Canadian Broadcasting Co.'s radio show on the MED and the Middle English Compendium and quotations for the supplement; cassettes of remarks on the MED and on one of its retiring editors; photographs of MED editors and staff; slides and transparencies of medieval manuscripts; printed maps; and artifacts such as IBM typewriter balls with Middle English letters used in the early camera-ready copy. (For other photographs, see the Retirements folders in Box 16.)

Additional visual materials are housed in Box 74, including four printed maps of England (all or part) used by the editors, and six examples of camera-ready pages for the MED, to illustrate the various stages the printed fascicles went through between 1952 and 2001. These are: E.1 e -- endelonges (1952), the first fascicle to be printed; the original Plan and Bibliography (1954); N.1 muche -- neigh (1978), a late example of typewriter-composited copy; Q q -- raiment (1984), the first word-processed fascicle; S.13 spranklinge -- steering (1990), a late example of the word-processed format used from Q through S; and T.1 t -- tasting (1993), the first fascicle with formatting changes to increase readability (boldfaced dates, italicized short titles for Middle English texts, etc.).

An MED Sorting Board is also part of the Audio, Digital, and Visual Material, and Artifacts series. Because of its size (26" high, 33" wide, and 11" deep at the bottom) it is housed separately. This particular sorting board was created by MED associate editor Oscar Johnson in the 1940s, and thereafter each editor had one like it at his or her desk for use in editing: usually, as the first step, for sorting the quotation slips for a word by date, with a slot for each century or part of a century; then, for separating senses or subsenses, with tentative definitions clipped to the backs of the slots into which the illustrative quotations were dropped; next, as the interpretation of senses was refined, for separating the contents of one slot into two or three, or for combining the contents of more than one slot into a single one; and, ultimately, for having the whole word in question arranged and labeled in final form by senses and subsenses along with the relevant quotations for each.

The Sound Recording series consists of reel-to-reel tapes and phonograph discs. Included is a broadcast, May 16, 1960, of "Open Hearing" on ABC-TV news on the topic of the Catholic Church and the election of 1960 with guests, Paul Blanshard, James O'Gara, and John Bennett. There is, in addition, a recording of a speech, 1973, delivered before the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, entitled, "Our Battle with Clerical Power"; and disc recording of Blanshard appearing on WNEW's program "Counterpoint" moderated by William Kunstler.