Archives Spotlight: Two Audio Collections

The following article was published in February/March 2010 issue of MAA Focus. The full issue is available here.

The Archives of American Mathematics (AAM) at the University of Texas at Austin is pleased to announce two recently donated collections are now available to researchers: the Math Medley Radio Show Collection and the Finite Simple Group Theory Oral History Collection.

The Math Medley Radio Show Collection was donated to the AAM by Pat Kenschaft, who conceived the show and acted as its primary host. The collection consists of approximately 300 recordings on audio cassettes and CDs.

The show began after the publication of Kenschaft’s book Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math Even If You Don’t. It was self-funded, with additional support from advertisers and the American Mathematical Society. ’Math Medleyâ? was on the air weekly, from May 1998 to June 2004. It focused on education, parenting, equity, and environmental issues as well as mathematics itself. Among the guests were the presidents of major mathematical organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Mathematical Association of America, American Mathematical Society, and the World Congress of Mathematicians. Other guests included teachers of mathematics at all levels, and people who used mathematics in environmental and financial fields.

A sampling of the shows includes:

January 23, 1999: interviews with Ann Koblitz, author of A Convergence of Lives, Sofia Kovalevskaia: Scientist, Writer, Revolutionary, and Constance Reid, author of Julia: A Life in Mathematics

March 18, 2000: Guillermo Mendieta, ’Why I Am Threatening a Hunger Strike Over Mathematics Educationâ?

January 6, 2001: Rebecca Goldburg, ’Genetic Engineering, the Environment, and Riskâ?

September 21, 2002: Valerie DeBellis, ’Emotions on Mathematics: Affective Influence on the Learning of Mathematicsâ?

July 26, 2003: Sue White, ’Families Learn Real Mathematics Nationwideâ?

February 7, 2004: Fred Azcarate, ’The Mathematics of Health Care and Other Economic Issues.â?

For a complete listing of the shows and more information about the collection, please see the inventory for the Math Medley Radio Show Collection at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/01277/cah-01277.html.

The second audio collection is the Finite Simple Group Theory Oral History Collection. In 1981 and 1982, Joe Gallian conducted interviews with five prominent figures in the area of finite simple group theory, including Jonathan L. Alperin, Michael Aschbacher, Daniel E. Gorenstein, Robert L. Griess, and Ronald Solomon. The collection consists of the audio cassettes of the interviews and transcripts; all recordings and edited transcripts are available for researchers, with the exception of Robert Griess’s transcript. The collection also contains recordings of several lectures Gallian attended in the 1980s. There are no transcripts for these recordings.

For a listing and more information about the Finite Simple Group Theory Oral History Collection, please see the inventory at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/01217/cah-01217.html.

For more articles on the Archives of American Mathematics, check out MAA's Archives of American Mathematics Spotlight.

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