AUGUST 21, 2020 —The Friends of the Davenport Public Library recently received a grant that will allow a number of materials related to Davenport Jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke to be digitized making these materials available to Bix fans and historians for the first time.
The collection which includes 239 reel-to-reel tapes as well as 8mm films, cassette tapes, and DVDs is from the Bix Beiderbecke Museum and World Archives Collection. The $14,847 grant from the Iowa State Historical Society and State of Iowa will pay for digitizing by Media Transfer Services of Rochester, NY. The digitization portion of the project is expected to be completed next year.
Some of the reel-to-reel tapes haven’t been played in years because of concerns for the condition of the tapes, according to Kathryn Kuntz, supervisor of the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections at Davenport Public Library. She is overseeing the project for Friends of the Davenport Public Library and the Bix Beiderbecke Museum and World Archives Collection. Repair of the different media prior to digitizing has been included in the grant.
The original materials will be returned with a hard drive of the digitized materials, on both archival tape and in MP4 forms that can be placed online, Ms. Kuntz said. Once returned, the materials will be cataloged and made available to the public online by late 2021.
In 2018, an agreement was reached between the Davenport Public Library and the Davenport-based Bix Beiderbecke Museum to house the museum materials in the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center. The Bix materials remain the property of the Bix Beiderbecke Museum with Special Collections allowing the public access to the legacy of Bix Beiderbecke.