Georgia Tech is home to a lot of things — international researchers, Fulbright scholars and even an Oscar. But the Institute has one more claim to fame that you might not be aware of.  

“‘Lost in the Stacks’ is the world’s first and only research library rock n’ roll radio show,” said Ameet Doshi, one of the show’s co-hosts.   

Doshi had some DJ experience from his undergraduate years in Knoxville, Tenn., and wanted to get back onto the airwaves. So, when Charlie Bennett, a commons coordinator at the library, approached Doshi, a user engagement librarian and assessment coordinator, about the library being on the radio, he jumped at the chance.

“What I meant was that the library should send announcements and maybe little featurettes to WREK,” said Bennett, a self-professed “radio and music geek” who had always wanted to do a radio show. “Ameet thought I meant we should start a library radio show — he convinced me in about three minutes.”

The two spent most of the fall 2009 semester planning and scheduling their first show, which took place in January 2010, and they’ve been on Fridays at noon on WREK Atlanta, 91.1 FM ever since.

The show focuses on library-related topics, which are developed during a brainstorming session that occurs about a month before the semester begins. The two sketch out 15 to 18 topics that have included “Film and the Library” and “The Library at Night.”

Shows feature interviews with guests related to the respective theme (the goal is always to have at least one student, a librarian or library staff member and a faculty member on each show) interspersed with theme-related music.

For example, the “Film and the Library” show included interviews with students from the BuzzStudios Film Club, a School of Literature, Communication and Culture professor and the librarian responsible for managing the film collection, as well as indie-rock songs related to filmmaking or actors and actresses (e.g., “Clark Gable” by The Postal Service).

“Selecting the songs is both challenging and fun, since we want to adhere to WREK’s ethic of playing music not heard on commercial radio,” Doshi said. “Also, we classify each set of music on the Library of Congress Subject Heading for that theme. So, the music set for the film show is filed under PN 1993.5.G7.”  

In the future, both Doshi and Bennett hope to make every episode of the show available for download. But, copyright issues are slowing down the process. For now, listeners can stream the past week’s episode here.

To learn more about “Lost in the Stacks,” visit the show’s FaceBook page.