J. Lloyd Holbert Tape Collection

Content Description

J. Lloyd Holbert (d. 1998) was for many years (1950s to 1990s) the recording technician at Sligo Seventh-day Adventist Church in Takoma Park, Maryland, on the campus of Columbia Union College. By virtue of its location near the Church world headquarters and as one of the largest Adventist churches in the world, Sligo was a destination for a virtual who’s who of Adventist speakers. This very large tape collection captures the voices of these leaders plus the flavor of a week by week Adventist church. Some of the categories of recordings included are: • Complete [church] service. For some time Mr. Holbert recorded the complete church service each week. <br> • Lesson study. The Sabbath school lesson study was conducted from the front so it was essentially a sermon or lecture based on the Sabbath school lesson quarterly.<br> • Graduation. Graduation services were important events since Sligo was the campus church for Columbia Union College. The local Sligo Elementary School and Takoma Academy also conducted graduation exercises in the church.<br> • Memorial [funeral] service. As a local community church it hosted many funeral services of church members.<br> • Talks. This is a large category basically because a “talking” type recording with no other contextual identification went into this category. Many may be misplaced, but in the amount of time available to process the collection this is the best we could do.<br> • Alumni. Sligo Church was the venue for part of the annual Columbia Union College alumni reunion. There are recordings of portions of these programs–not the entire weekend.<br> • Miscellaneous. Similar to “talk” these are programs which were not compatible with other categories. Upon closer analysis some could be reassigned.<br> • Music. Sligo Church was the scene of numerous musical concerts by various school groups and other groups of performers.<br> • Saturday Seminar. Local dentist, Jerry Fuller, had a weekly Saturday morning discussion program which aired on the College radio station, WGTS. These discussions had a religious orientation whether the discussion was on archaeology, salvation, science and the Bible, or human sexuality. While these were not recordings from Sligo Church, Holbert collected them as well. <br> • Voice of Prophecy. Holbert also recorded VOP broadcasts off the radio.<br> As mentioned above there are quite a few non-church recordings in this collection. There are also a handful of non-Adventist related recordings such as the funeral of Dwight Eisenhower and Martin Luther King. There will also be quite a few commercial music recordings which Holbert copied onto his personal tapes. Due to the age of the tape recordings some may not play well on playback equipment. This problem will increase as the collection ages.

Acquisition Type

Gift

Provenance

This collection came to the Andrews University Center for Adventist Research via J. Lloyd Holbert’s estate in 1998.

Restrictions Apply

Yes

Use Restrictions

All users of this collection will complete the “Application to Use Unpublished Records,” and observe the regulation specified in the “Patron’s Agreement” and “Researcher’s Code of Conduct.” All records in this collection are open and available for research. However, tape duplication may be limited by the Center’s ability to produce copies and by any stated copyright notices. Suggested citation for this collection: Box_____, fld_____, J. Lloyd Holbert Tape Collection (Collection 195), Center for Adventist Research, James White Library, Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI.