Growing from his love of folk dancing and the related musical traditions of Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East, Joel Ackerman carefully built a collection of almost 2,000 78rpm sound recordings of Jewish, Greek, Turkish, Armenian, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Polish, and Ukrainian recordings made before and shortly after WWII. He also had an interest in and collected Portuguese fado, and French-Canadian 78rpm recordings. Mr. Ackerman's collecting taste was prescient, as interest in these records among scholars and collectors have only grown and continue to grow, partly popularized by reissue CDs, some of which drew upon the records in Ackerman's collection.
Ackerman donated the collection to UC Santa Barbara in 2017 and the cataloged recordings can be found using UC Library Search. Thus far nearly 1,000 of the recordings have also been digitized and are being added to the Discography of American Historical Recordings. Digital copies can be requested through a Special Collections Research Account.
For more information on the collection or assistance in using the materials, please contact Special Collections staff at special@library.ucsb.edu.
