Frequently Asked Questions

What was the David Sarnoff Library?

The DSL was located in Princeton, New Jersey, and housed materials related to the life of David Sarnoff. In the mid-1960s, RCA constructed the facility to house Mr. Sarnoff's papers and exhibits about his career. In 1972, Robert Sarnoff, David's oldest son and chief executive of RCA, incorporated the non-profit 501(c)(3) David Sarnoff Collection, which was to maintain the his father's papers, books, and memorabilia in the Library and "function as a non-profit educational, literary, scientific and charitable foundation."

Between 1998 and 2010, the Collection was revived as a functioning organization that also operated as the David Sarnoff Library. The Library's activities were focused around preserving, understanding, and promoting the history, process, and spirit of innovation represented by David Sarnoff's career and RCA's activities. Beyond archival, reference, and research services, the Library’s activities included this website, field trips, tours of new exhibits, lecture series, and educational programs in concert with other organizations, including a technological re-enactment of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast.

The DSL adjoined the David Sarnoff Research Center, which formerly housed the RCA Labs. When General Electric Company bought RCA and spun off its labs in 1987, Sarnoff Corporation assumed maintenance responsibilities and staff support.  In 2011 Sarnoff Corporation will become a division of the nonprofit innovation services company SRI International, formerly known as the Stanford Research Institute.

What did the Library contain?

The DSL maintained papers, books, memorabilia, and other holdings deposited by David Sarnoff as well as files, photos, publications, and artifacts related to RCA and its employees, especially those of its laboratories. These included over 25,000 photographs and other files transferred from the RCA corporate and laboratories public affairs offices, as well as RCA publications and serials; equipment notes and bulletins; private papers; researchers' lab notebooks; RCA and RCA Labs annual reports; and Princeton technical reports and engineering memoranda. The bulk of material covered the period between the construction of the Princeton laboratories in 1941 and the purchase of RCA by GE in 1986.

The DSL also staged exhibits on David Sarnoff and RCA’s innovations to show the relationship between his vision and the technologies developed by RCA scientists and engineers. These included landmark RCA radios and televisions; electron tubes from the collections of Drs. George Brown and Vladimir Zworykin; the oldest known electron microscope; early liquid crystal displays; RCA's first transistors; early optically rewritable discs; one of the first CMOS microprocessors; and the first thin-film transistor (TFT) and charge-coupled device (CCD).

Mr. Sarnoff selected his papers for the Library and they are primarily public in nature. Documentation of his management of RCA disappeared with RCA's corporate archives when GE took over the RCA Building in 1986-87. The Library had a small collection of video and audio recordings related to Mr. Sarnoff and the RCA Laboratories, and very few files related to RCA Victor Records or the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

How was the Library funded?

Funding came from in-kind support by Sarnoff Corporation; grants by the New Jersey Historical Commission; its board of directors; Friends of the Library; and sales of books and usage rights to the Library's collection of photographs and other materials related to David Sarnoff and RCA. Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D., was the executive director, with generous staff support from Sarnoff Corporation, consultants, contractors, volunteers, and interns.

Where did all the papers and objects go?

The archival collections, including a substantial digital library, were transferred to the Hagley Library & Museum in Wilmington, Delaware: www.hagley.org/library/.

The RCA Broadcast Division Manuals Collection was transferred to InfoAge, http://infoage.org/index.html, where members of the New Jersey Antique Radio Club are cataloging the contents of some 200 archival cartons: www.njarc.org.

The artifacts were transferred to The College of New Jersey Foundation for exhibition in a museum at The College of New Jersey, which will open in April 2011: www.tcnj.edu/.

Select items were donated to InfoAge, http://infoage.org/index.html, and the Camden County Historical Society, www.cchsnj.com/.

Can I copy the pictures online?

Please feel free to copy images for educational assignments. We ask however that you credit the David Sarnoff Library for visual or written material that you use, and that you cite the relevant webpage and date of visit. If you would like to use images on your website, please link to the images, and let us know of the links.

How can I acquire higher resolution versions of the images?

For print quality or high-definition reproductions, please contact the Hagley Library, which received the physical copies or negatives as well as a set of the all the Library’s digitized materials: www.hagley.org/library/usingmaterial/reproduction.html.

What is the copyright on the site's images?

There is no simple answer. This website makes no claims about copyright of the original images, whose status is legally unclear. The online versions here have been resized, cropped, and often adjusted for contrast, brightness, or color, which may create a copyright on these digital versions.

I have some Victor records or a Victrola.  Where can I found out more them or their value?

For Victrolas, the best website is the enormous Victor Victrola Page: www.victor-victrola.com/index.html.  Please read the Getting Started section first, which will explain what the website covers (Victor Talking Machine products from 1901 to 1929—no RCA Victor products), what those dates and numbers on your Victrola’s metal tag mean, etc.

For records, the short answer is that the overwhelming majority of the billions of 78s are barely worth the effort of a yard sale.  For more information, visit the Frequently Asked Questions page of the largest 78 dealer in the world: www.78rpm.com/.  For information on more obscure titles or labels, visit or join the 78-C and 78-L Yahoo groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/78-c/ and www.shellac.org/wams/w78l.html.

Where can I find information about NBC?

There are three major repositories of NBC files and recordings: the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/rr/record/recnbc.html; Library of American Broadcasting in College Park, Maryland, www.lib.umd.edu/LAB/; and Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, Wisconsin: http://arcat.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=875.

How do I visit the Library?