Tiger Giving Day 2021 donations make 1979 'Burn the Bulldogs' video available online

Just in time for the 126th meeting of one of college football’s oldest rivalries, U-Matic tapes digitized and preserved through the generosity of Tiger Giving Day 2021 donors have yielded video of a tradition from more than 40 years ago: the annual “Burn the Bulldogs” parade float burning.

The video, https://archive.org/details/rg381_661, shows groups of students in 1979 throwing their carried parade floats into a bonfire. This tradition is no longer part of events leading up to the Auburn versus Georgia game, but is a reminder of a different time on the Auburn University campus.

The U-Matic tape that this video came from was one of 200 that Auburn University Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives asked Tiger Giving Day 2021 donors to provide the funds that would allow these legacy media tapes to be digitized and made available to a wide audience. The tapes digitized so far cover the 1970s through the 1990s and include a wide variety of AU campus subject matter such as parades, pep rallies, and band performances.

Video tapes are one of several legacy media formats that are in danger of degrading and having their content lost to researchers. The Special Collections and Archives department of AU Libraries has been involved in a multi-year program to get as much of the legacy media as they hold, such as audio and video tape, digitized and stored online. Much of this work has been made possible by the generosity of Tiger Giving Day donors who helped fund the purchase of specialized equipment and professional services to save the content.

The collection of digitized legacy media of Auburn University Libraries may be found here.