  This paper traces strategies used by the Radio Preservation Task Force of the
Library of Congress's National Recording Preservation Board to develop a
publicly searchable database documenting extant radio materials held by
collecting institutions throughout the country. Having aggregated metadata on
2,500 unique collections to date, the project has encountered a series of
logistical challenges that are not only technical in nature but also
institutional and social, raising critical issues involving organizational
structure, political representation, and the ethics of data access. As the
project continues to expand and evolve, lessons from its early development
offer valuable reminders of the human judgment, hidden labor, and interpersonal
relations required for successful big data work.
