C-SPAN records

Access and use

Location of collection:
George Mason University
2400 Fenwick Library
Special Collections Research Center
Fenwick Library MS2FL
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Mieko Palazzo
Phone: (703) 993-2220
Fax: (703) 993-2669
Restrictions:

There are no access restrictions.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions on educational and/or personal use for Series 1-4 and 7-12. Reproductions (photographs, scans, etc.) of items in Series 5: Green Room Faxes and Series 6: Viewer Mail may not be made by individual researchers. Limited reproductions can be made by SCRC staff for offsite use by researchers, but will only be made available with personally identifiable information redacted.

Preferred citation:

C-SPAN records, C0270, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Summary

Extent:
200.0 linear feet 471 boxes
Creator:
C-SPAN Corporation, Lamb, Brian, 1941-, and Long, Lea Anne
Abstract:
The C-SPAN records consist of materials created and collected by the C-SPAN Corporation and its founder Brian Lamb from the years 1809, 1978-2012. The materials created by C-SPAN originate from 1978-2012, with one antique newspaper from 1809 gifted to Lamb. The records document C-SPAN's functions as a broadcasting network, as well as its continuing engagement in the political and public affairs sphere of the United States.
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

C-SPAN records, C0270, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Background

Scope and content:

The C-SPAN records largely consist of correspondence, viewer mail, photographs, photographic negatives, slides, newspapers, audiovisual materials, posters, pamphlets, memorabilia, and books created between the years 1978-2012. The collection contains 12 series.

Series 1: Press Clippings (1978-2012) includes press clippings related to C-SPAN and Brian Lamb from a wide variety of sources, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and multiple local-level newspapers. Topics range from international politics to the public perception of C-SPAN, as well as events such as C-SPAN's 25th Anniversary, programming, and political news.

Series 2: Routers (1984-1996) includes multiple press clips from a variety of sources and newspapers that were routed to Lamb and C-SPAN staff, covering topics such as presidential campaigns, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and the C-SPAN Bus, 1994-1995 tour.

Series 3: C-SPAN Bus Clippings (1993-1994) includes multiple press clip routers on the C-SPAN Bus from a variety of sources and newspapers for both Lamb and C-SPAN staff. The Bus's itinerary is also included.

Series 4: Press Releases (1985-2002) includes press releases by and about C-SPAN's activities and endeavors, which include conferences, coverage of events, new television stations broadcasting C-SPAN, speeches, and promotions. Topics also include programming, such as "Booknotes" and "Road to the White House."

Series 5: Green Room Faxes (1994) includes faxes from C-SPAN viewers that were sent to the C-SPAN studio green room. These range from positive and negative responses to coverage and programming, as well as questions directed at Brian Lamb.

Series 6: Viewer Mail (1994-2004) includes viewer mail responding to multiple events and topics shown on C-SPAN. Includes responses to C-SPAN programming, coverage, current events, politics, and responses directed to Brian Lamb. Formats range widely, from handwritten to typed letters and greeting cards, to notecards and postcards, and other printed materials.

Series 7: Education and Marketing (1989-2009) includes materials related to C-SPAN's various education and marketing campaigns. Topics include Viewer of the Week, American Writers, Campaign 2000 Educator's Conference, Alexis de Tocqueville, Lincoln-Douglas Series, and the C-SPAN School Bus. Other notable materials include original mixed-media portraits of famous authors and program transcripts of C-SPAN programming.

Series 8: Executive Files and Correspondence (1976-2009) includes the majority of Lamb's personal correspondence with a number of individuals and organizations. Also includes documents related to C-SPAN's operating budget, Board Meetings and Executive Committee Meetings memoranda, press clippings, "Booknotes" materials and manuscripts, tour speeches, C-SPAN 2000, 20th Anniversary planning materials, and Time Warner Cable v. The City of New York court documents.

Series 9: Photographs (1978-2008) includes photographs, photographic negatives, and slides of a variety of C-SPAN's functions, including coverage of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and other public events, individuals who worked for and with C-SPAN, and Brian Lamb's activities and events he attended during that time.

Series 10: Audiovisual (1980s-2012) includes a wide variey of analog audiovisual formats and content, ranging from interviews with C-SPAN's board members, press clips, and public events, to graphic design mock ups and digital photographs. Formats include VHS tapes, U-matic tapes, floppy disks, cassette tapes, CDs, and DVDs, among others.

Series 11: Memorabilia (1980s-2012) includes memorabilia gathered from multiple C-SPAN functions and programs, such as the Tocqueville Tour, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates reenactment, the C-SPAN Bus, coverage of Presidential elections, in a variety of formats such as pens, pencils, pins, stickers, keychains, and many more.

Series 12: Miscellaneous (1809-2012) includes miscellaneous items such as award plaques gifted to C-SPAN and Brian Lamb from a number of organizations, newspapers, C-SPAN advertisements, loose scrapbook pages, exhibit panels of varying sizes, C-SPAN political cartoons, and an antique newspaper from 1809 given to Brian Lamb.

Biographical / historical:

C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network), created by the American Cable Television Industry, was founded in 1979 by Brian Lamb with the aim of televising sessions of the U.S. Congress, and offering broader access and coverage of public affairs events. C-SPAN's exact mission statements are as follows: "To provide C-SPAN's audience access to the live gavel-to-gavel proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and to other forums where public policy is discussed, debated and decided-all without editing, commentary or analysis and with a balanced presentation of points of view; To provide elected and appointed officials and others who would influence public policy a direct conduit to the audience without filtering or otherwise distorting their points of view; To provide the audience, through the call-in program, direct access to elected officials, other decision makers and journalists on a frequent and open basis; To employ production values that accurately convey the business of government rather than distract from it; and To conduct all other aspects of its operations consistent with these principles."

With an original concentration on congressional sessions, C-SPAN quickly expanded into a 24-hour network by 1982, and added call-in programs and other, non-congressional public affairs/events to its schedule. In 1986, the network expanded even more, developing the C-SPAN2 channel, which covered gavel-to-gavel Senate debates. By 2001, C-SPAN3 had launched in order to maintain full coverage of congressional sessions, as well as other original C-SPAN programming such as American History TV, The Communicators, Newsmakers, and Washington Journal. In addition to covering the U.S. Congress, C-SPAN has also covered the Executive branch of the U.S. government, including daily briefings from the White House, as well as events such as the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, and Presidential debates. One of C-SPAN's most successful endeavors was the creation of the C-SPAN Bus in 1993, which serves as a mobile production studio and learning center that visits hundreds of communities per year. The Bus, which is still being utilized, aims to engage with students, teachers, viewers, and elected officials and teach them about C-SPAN's operations. The Bus has enabled many successful educational endeavors for the network, including the Alexis de Tocqueville tour, which began in May 1997. The same year, C-SPAN expanded further with the addition of C-SPAN Radio, available in the Washington DC Metro area and nationally on satellite radio. Despite repeated efforts to do so over the past two decades, C-SPAN does not cover the U.S. Supreme Court in live TV or radio broadcast formats. C-SPAN and its sister channels enjoy strong ratings. Around the late 1980s through the early 1990s, die-hard C-SPAN watchers became known as "C-SPAN Junkies" for their dedicated viewing of and interaction with the C-SPAN network. C-SPAN maintains a consistent and large viewer base. In 2017 alone, over 70 million viewers from a wide range of backgrounds and political persuasions have accessed C-SPAN across their various platforms.

C-SPAN's founder, Brian Lamb, was an integral part of the development of the network. Lamb was a White House telecommunications policy staffer and Washington bureau chief for Cablevision magazine prior to creating C-SPAN, and brought valuable experience and insight to the job. Lamb is renowned for his many interviews and interviewing style, which was evident from the early days of the C-SPAN daily call in. Lamb's interviewing style was highlighted on his show "Booknotes" (1989-2004) where he interviewed 801 authors of mostly non-fiction books, making the show the longest-running author interview program in broadcast history. The success of "Booknotes" led to the creation of "Book TV" in 1998, a 48-hour weekend programming block dedicated to covering nonfiction books. After thirty-three years of service to the network, Lamb retired as CEO of C-SPAN in 2012, but remains its executive chairman. Lamb was succeeded by Susan Swain and Rob Kennedy as co-CEOs. Lamb's longtime secretary Lea Anne Long also contributed to C-SPAN's functions, planning events and his complicated and numerous travel itineraries. Lamb currently hosts the show "Q and A" on C-SPAN, which "highlights today's most compelling thinkers in politics, media, education, and science," and has been running since 2004. Lamb's strong and singular legacy on C-SPAN continues to this day. Lamb was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 for his extensive work in broadcasting over the years.

Acquisition information:
Donated by the C-SPAN Corporation in 2011.
Processing information:

Jordan Patty, Former Manuscripts and Archives Librarian at George Mason University's Special Collections Research Center, began working at the C-SPAN offices in November 2013 to begin processing the C-SPAN records. Mr. Patty established processing and storage space, and moved boxes and files to accommodate metal shelving and tables for the work to be done. The early part of 2014 was spent shifting, reboxing, and clearing space for the shelves that were installed specifically for the project. The shelving installation was completed in early April 2014, which allowed for the first shipment of boxes from C-SPAN's offsite storage facility. Based on this first shipment of offsite boxes, a project strategy was developed. Mr. Patty completed processing of the Press Clippings series in December 2014 and the Press Releases in February 2015, when he began working onsite at C-SPAN two days each week. He finished processing the Viewer Mail and Education and Marketing series in 2015, and he continued with the Executive Files in Correspondence series in 2016.

Through financial support from C-SPAN, former C-SPAN employee Maura Pierce was hired by the University Libraries as Processing Assistant for the collection. Ms. Pierce began working on the project in January 2014, assisting with initial reorganization in preparation for shelving installation and processing of the press clippings and photograph collection. Based on Ms. Pierce's analysis, the total number of boxes from the photograph collection that were transferred to Mason was approximately half of the original estimate. She completed processing photograph albums pertaining to the Booknotes program in May 2015. Ms. Pierce also completed an inventory for additional photograph albums.

Amanda Menjivar was hired as the C-SPAN Project Archivist in March 2017. She re-assessed the already processed part of the collection (over 110 linear feet), processed the outstanding part (over 90 linear feet), and brought the two pieces into one whole collection. Ms. Brent spent the initial time in the process gaining intellectual control over the collection, including re-inventorying, and inventorying materials that had already been arranged. She then began inventorying the unarranged materials, such as the majority of the Executive Files and Correspondence collection. Based on this work, she organized the collection into twelve series.

Processing done by Jordan Patty and Maura Pierce completed in 2016; processing completed by Amanda Menjivar in 2017. EAD markup completed by Amanda Menjivar in 2017. Finding aid updated by Amanda Menjivar in November 2022.

Arrangement:
Series
  1. Series 1: Press Clippings, 1978-2012 (Boxes 1-51)
  2. Series 2: Routers, 1984-1996 (Boxes 51-60)
  3. Series 3: C-SPAN Bus Clippings, 1993-1994 (Boxes 60-61)
  4. Series 4: Press Releases, 1985-2002 (Boxes 61-75)
  5. Series 5: Green Room Faxes, 1994 (Boxes 75-91)
  6. Series 6: Viewer Mail, 1994-2004 (Boxes 91-145)
  7. Series 7: Education and Marketing, 1989-2009 (Boxes 145-229)
  8. Series 8: Executive Files and Correspondence, 1976-2009 (Boxes 229-402)
  9. Series 9: Photographs, 1978-2008 (Boxes 403-444)
  10. Series 10: Audiovisual, 1980s-2012 (Boxes 445-452)
  11. Series 11: Memorabilia, 1980s-2012 (Boxes 453-456)
  12. Series 12: Miscellaneous, 1809-2012 (Boxes 457-470, Map Cases 5.2 - 5.5)
Physical / technical requirements:

The Special Collections Research Center does not have the equipment necessary to watch Betacam or U-matic tapes, as well as other obsolete audiovisual formats contained in Series 10. Additional time and money may be required to digitize this material for access.

Physical location:
Map Case 19.1-19.3, 31.1
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard