Fundemental problems

[William Meredith <wmered@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Fellow arsclist members,
I am a second year masters student in Library and Information Studies. I
have taken it upon myself to do an independent project around the
establishment of a radio broadcast archive. CKUT, Radio McGill, produces
unique spoken word programming on subjects outside of the mainstream, but
there is no system yet in place to record, preserve and allow further
access to these shows. The great majority of shows are not kept at all and
at present the archive is little more than a big pile of tapes and an
underdeveloped vision of what the future could bring. Many of the tape
boxes are very poorly labeled so that we know almost nothing about the
production, like who is interviewing or the date the show was aired. My
work is cut out for me.
I am writing to the list in the hopes that people can give me information
based on their own experience and/or leads to information. I will welcome
whatever suggestions and wisdom people might want to share, be it a few
lines on a single point, or something more holistic. 
The goal of my independent study is to look at the issues involved in
starting a tape archive, and make a series of recommendations for how to
proceed. Obviously, I have many issues to deal with, but I will begin here
with the most pressing according to the course outline I wrote for myself. 

· What approaches or guidelines do you have for abstracting broadcasts
(this is for a related paper in another course, the due date of which is
looming, and I could Really use feedback on this point. The literature
seems non-existent)
· In cataloguing the tapes, what fields I should use? I have a good grip on
this part, but I would be interested, for example, to see sample records
from various databases. How detailed are your records?
· What database software should I use? What do you use? I have various
criteria like:
ease of use
ease of eventual web-mountability
ease of editing records later
ease of preventing unauthorized tampering
(possibly) if File Maker Pro files can be imported
and of course, the cost. The station has a seriously tight budget
· What thesaurus/controlled vocabulary should/could I use? (should I use
one at all? Do you?)
· I have a huge problem with correctly spelling people's names. There are
many times when the interviewer introduces the guest and there are several
ways to approach the spelling. And these people are not famous. Despite the
value of this as an access point, it seems like far more work than can be
afforded, given the return. Any thoughts on this?
· What further web links or readings do you recommend?

Thank you all for your time. I hope that some of you can be of some help in
my grappling for solutions.

William Meredith