College communities, somewhat like airports, are transitory places. An enormous number of the people who dot the Penn State landscape today will be gone tomorrow—or next year, or in three years.

The transient nature of student life is both a renewing force in a college town, ensuring freshness and vibrancy, at the same time that it is a corrosive force, quickly breaking down and wiping away personal and institutional knowledge about who and what has become before.

In the spirit of combating some of those corrosive aspects, the Penn State Media Alumni Interest Group exists to sustain and share a bit of institutional knowledge for the benefit of each new generation of students. That’s what these “Public Archives” are about. These archives contain a bit of the history (including documents, photos, video, and audio) of The LION 90.7fm and its predecessors dating back to 1912. These archives are—to put it mildly—incomplete. But they’re what we have at the moment. They’re a start.

I encourage anyone to get in touch and share whatever materials from their era that belong in these archives, especially if they are likely to benefit the knowledge and decision-making of the next generation of students.