Nine hundred and fifty sound recordings of programs presented at the Commonwealth Club before 1980 are now fully described in Hoover’s database of club recordings. Most programs are speeches about local, national, and international political and social affairs, though some panel discussions and other formats are included.
In addition to title and date, the full descriptions include a program summary, Library of Congress subject headings, standardized names based on the Library of Congress name authority file, and a description of each speaker.
For programs since 1980, basic descriptive records are available; they include a title, date, and speaker names that have not been standardized. Details about these programs are gradually being added. Meanwhile, the Hoover Archives is receiving recordings of recent programs at the club and adding those new titles to the database.
Metadata cataloging interns from the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University—Sandra Chang, Diana Kohnke, Paula Little, and Sarah Giffen West—contributed many database records.
Users are invited to listen to the recordings in the Hoover Archives reading room at no charge. Please contact archives@hoover.stanford.edu at least two weeks before your visit to ensure that use copies of the recordings are available. To purchase recordings listed in the database, please contact the Commonwealth Club at club@commonwealthclub.org.
