The gateway to European audiovisual heritage

Search in:

Local Radio and Television Records from Public Media Stations Across USA To Be Made Available to the Public

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress, WGBH Boston and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, launched a new website at americanarchive.org on April 7, providing the public with access to a collection of American public radio and television content dating back to the 1950s.

These audio and video materials, created by more than 120 public broadcasting organizations across the United States, have now been digitized and preserved, and will be a resource for scholars, researchers, educators, filmmakers and the general public to delve into the rich history of public broadcasting across America.
 

The website will initially provide access to 2.5 million inventory records created during the American Archive Content Inventory Project. The records will provide information about which public media video and audio materials have been digitized and preserved in the AAPB, indicate which video and audio files are available for research on location at WGBH and the Library of Congress, and highlight the participating stations. Contributing stations’ histories, information about significant productions and resources for participating organizations will be available online.
 
Between April and October, WGBH and the Library of Congress will continue development of the AAPB website. By October, video and audio content will be accessible for the public to stream on the website’s Online Reading Room. Curated collections of video and audio by scholars and the AAPB staff will focus on topics of historical significance.
 
The collection includes interviews and performances by local and national luminaries from a broad variety of professions and cultural genres. Just a few examples of the items in the collection include: Iowa Public Television’s interview with Olympic runner Jesse Owens, recorded in 1979, the last year of his life; KUSC’s (Los Angeles) broadcast of commentary by George Lucas on the original three Star Wars movies; Twin Cities Public Television’s recording of a 1960 interview with presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey; and WGBH’s 1967 interviews with then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan.
 
Visit americanarchive.org to examine their records, and follow the sites development until the launch of video and audio content by October!
 
More information is available on the American Archive blog.

Title
Date
Provider
Description