April 14, 2004 Library of Congress Announces 2004 Coca-Cola Fellowship Recipient

The Library of Congress has announced the selection of Angela Blake of the University of Toronto as recipient of the 2004 Library of Congress Coca-Cola Fellowship for the Study of Advertising and World Cultures. Administered by the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division in collaboration with the Library's Office of Scholarly Programs and the John W. Kluge Center, the fellowship is awarded on a competitive basis to researchers studying the interrelationships among advertising, culture, commerce and the media.

Blake's proposal, "Sound and the City: Aurality, Place and Community in Post-1945 New York and Toronto," is an innovative study of the aural dimension of urban history that will rely heavily on the Library's recorded sound collections. In its second year, the fellowship provides recipients with a stipend of $20,000 and access to resources for an extended period of in-depth, multidisciplinary research into the Library's audiovisual and other research collections.

Selection of the Coca-Cola fellow was made by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, upon the recommendation of a three-person selection committee chosen from non-Library of Congress experts from the broader academic community. Announcing the winner, Billington said, "The Library of Congress has the largest and most comprehensive audiovisual collections in the world, and the Coca-Cola fellowship provides a golden opportunity for scholarly research in this important area."

Funding for the scholarship was provided by a grant from the Coca-Cola Co. in connection with the donation of its archival collection of television broadcast advertising materials to the Library of Congress in 2000. The original funding from Coca-Cola allowed for the awarding of five fellowships on a yearly basis beginning in 2003; two fellowships were awarded in 2003. The two remaining fellowships will be awarded over the next two years, and acceptance of applications for the 2005 fellowship will begin Nov. 1, 2004. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/mopic/cokefellowship/.

The donation by the Coca-Cola Co. of its archive of television broadcast advertising materials to the Library in November 2000 was made in celebration of the company's 50th anniversary of its first television commercial, which aired on Thanksgiving Day of 1950. The collection consists of more than 22,000 commercials that document Coca Cola's entire broadcast advertising, including those produced internationally.

The donation of the collection was received by the Library as part of the its Bicentennial Gifts to the Nation program, marking the Library's 200th anniversary in 2000. The donation represents the largest gift of corporate advertising in the Library's history and joins a rich existing collection of broadcast advertising materials dating to the early days of radio.