American Archive of Public Broadcasting: PBS Annual Meeting 2014

a collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress

Goals and Objectives1. Discuss the history and progress of the American Archive

initiative2. Report on the experience of two participating stations3. Engage in a discussion around key issues and questions

Tweeting during the session? Follow us at @amarchivepub or use

#AmericanArchive

History & Progress

What is the American Archive?

•A collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress•Historic collection of American public radio and television content dating back to the 1950s

• Identified over 3 million items kept at stations, archives, producers, university collections across the country

• 2.5 million inventory records from 120 stations

• 40,000 hours of digital material initially from over 100 stations

Initial Collection

Goals through August 2015

• Ingest the 40,000 hours of digitized files into the LOC systems• Add 22,000 born-digital

files to the collection• Develop a website for

public access to the 2.5 million records from the inventory project

• Allow public access to proxy files on location at WGBH and LOC• Allow as much online

access to the media as possible, rights permitting, via the website

Long-Term Goals

• Grow the collection • Help public media

organizations with archiving, digitizing, and access to their collections• Build a consortium for

preservation and access of public media archive content

• Update existing records with richer descriptive data • Further development of

PBCore and broad adoption of schema• Develop on-line curated

collections• Identify opportunities for

long-term sustainability

Stories from Stations

KQED AND THEAMERICAN ARCHIVEOUR GOAL: Support the restoration and digitization of existing public media content

AMERICAN ARCHIVE PROJECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Located and identified existing TV tapes

• Organized and consolidated tape storage rooms

• Made sure all tapes were entered in the production database, creating new records as needed

• Prioritized tapes for digitization

AMERICAN ARCHIVE PROJECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS• Identified almost 40,000 assets

• Initially digitized 900 hours, have continued to digitize tapes

• Trained staff to use database

• Continued to purge tapes as needed

AMERICAN ARCHIVE PROJECTGOALS FOR THE FUTURE

• Create and implement media retention policy

• Catalog and digitize audio tapes

• Create and implement a digital asset management system

KQED Q & A• Q: How is KQED continuing to digitize their tapes?• A: KQED allocated funding for more digitization. Sandy gave a presentation at their Senior Staff

and All Staff meetings, providing a report on their achievements through the Content Inventory Project and digitization project. The station sees continuing to digitize as a valuable expense.

• Q: Do you have current staff managing your archive?• A: The Content Inventory Project helped them fund an archivist for a year. They currently have

the archivist on a project contract with discretionary funds.

• Q: Where are you sending your tapes for additional digitization?• A: Crawford Media Services – the real issues are shipping costs from California to Atlanta

• Q: How are you receiving your files from Crawford?• A: On Raid drives and LTO-6 tapes

• Q: How much staff time is allocated to your archive per week?• A: around 40 hours

STATION’S ARCHIVED MEMORIESRocky Mountain PBS

303-620-5734

[email protected]

www.RMPBS.org/SAM

Laura Sampson, SAM Founder/RMPBS Volunteer

STATION’S ARCHIVED MEMORIES (SAM)Rocky Mountain PBS

A volunteer-driven archive project since 2000

Awarded the 2004 “Community Development Award” by National Friends of Public Broadcasting

Serving the past, present and future of Rocky Mountain PBS by assuring that the history of the station, its importance to PBS and to the Colorado community will survive for generations to come.

RMPBS.org/SAM; SAM Office: 303-620-5734

MISSION STATEMENT

The Mission of Station’s Archived Memories (SAM) is

to identify, document and preserve the history of

Rocky Mountain PBS relating to its volunteer, programming,

community outreach and administrative operations.

• The Rocky Mountain PBS Station’s Archived Memories Toolkit, by the SAM volunteers, was unveiled at the 2003 PBS Development Conference.

• Every station received 2 copies.

• Toolkits remain available from SAM upon request: [email protected]

THE SAM TOOLKIT

What’s in the SAM toolkit?• The SAM TOOLKIT is a boxed-set of 3

components:• 1. Binder detailing the administration of SAM

(Chairman, Funding, Database, Bookkeeper, Recording Secretary)

• 2. Binder details the work of each committee. Includes templates, job descriptions, our numbering system, database explanation and much much more.

3.A DVD that is a copy of the entire written toolkit. It includes extra features such as audio samples of Oral History Interviews.

• Station’s Archived Memories (SAM) is unprecedented within the entire public broadcasting system.

• SAM has brought together staff, volunteers and members of the community to create a living history of Rocky Mountain PBS.

• Over 40 SAM volunteers collect, itemize, catalogue and digitize station photographs, written documents, memorabilia, local productions and oral history interviews.

WHAT HAS BEEN PRESERVED48,482 Photographs 14,134 Documents3,159 Memorabilia items190 Oral History interviews

PRODUCTION PRESERVATION

10,344 Productions have been inventoried 650 Productions have been preserved to DVD

STATION’S ARCHIVED MEMORIESRocky Mountain PBS

303-620-5734

[email protected]

www.RMPBS.org/SAM

Laura Sampson, SAM Founder/RMPBS Volunteer

Discussion

Discussion Section• During this section of the presentation, Karen and Casey asked

questions of the participants to gather feedback.

• If you are reading this presentation online, please comment with your answers to as many questions as you like. We appreciate your input!

Q: What could we have done better during the Content Inventory Project?

A: Participants agreed that the Content Inventory Project was overall a good experience.

Q: How has the American Archive impacted your workflows?Have you continued to add records to your inventory?

A: Participants said that their tapes are more organized and can be found and reused. Most are not continuing to add new records to the inventory due to lack of a dedicated staff person.

Q: Do you have any next steps in place for maintaining your station’s history?

A: Participants said they would like to continue archiving their station’s history. Laura Sampson said that in order to get buy in from your colleagues, you need to be able to explain how it can be used and the benefits of having an archive.

Q: How is your staff inventorying/managing your digitized and born-digital files?

A: This is an area where participants would like more guidance from the American Archive team.

Q: Would your station be interested in hosting an American Archive fellow/resident?What type of work would they do?

A: An overwhelming yes!

For those who were not able to attend the session, the American Archive team is considering submitting a grant proposal to fund recent graduates in Library and Information Science programs to be placed at stations for a year. The station would be involved with submitting a project proposal, based on the archiving needs of the station. Projects could include:

--inventorying the stations tapes--cataloging inventory records--helping establish methods for digital preservation--helping incorporate archiving into production workflow--helping establish a volunteer archives program and training those volunteers--other ideas?

Q: If you don’t have staff to manage your archive, would you consider volunteers?

A: Yes, many of the participants were interested in learning more from RMPBS and receiving a Station Archived Memories toolkit.

Q: Would your station be interested in having the American Archive license footage on your behalf?

A: Some of the participants liked this idea, but there was also concern about the rights issues and logistics when in many cases the rights are unknown.

Q: Do you have a handle on the rights to your station’s collection?

A: In some cases yes, but in others, no. Sometimes there are no legal files for many programs, and often the stations do not have a dedicated staff person to be able to go through those files. The American Archive team is interested in helping stations navigate those rights issues for educational purposes.

Q: Has your station considered pursuing grants to continue digitizing your tapes?How could the AAPB help you with thisendeavor?

A: Participants said they could use help with identifying funding organizations that fund digitization and archiving. Also suggested partnering with the American Archive on digitization projects and having the American Archive team help stations craft grant proposals.

Q: How can the American Archive continue to help you with archiving your station’s history?

A:1) American Archive team should create a customizable deck for stations to share at

their All Staff meetings2) The American Archive team could hold a monthly phone call with stations to talk

about progress and for stations to talk about how their own archiving is going3) The participants liked the idea of providing access to the American Archive collection

at locations other than the LoC and WGBH, such as at public libraries4) Participants were very interested in the American Archive residency project idea5) Stations would like some guidance on collecting best practices, handling of born

digital media, and providing access to their own collections for their station staff6) Participants were highly interested in the Station Archived Memories program and

would like to learn more about how to create volunteer archives programs7) Some stations would like for the American Archive team to help with

cataloging/further describing their digitized media, and some stations are already further describing their media and would like to provide the American Archive team with the most up-to-date records

If you are reading this presentation online, please feel free to comment with your own answers to these questions in the comment section or email us.

[email protected]

@amarchivepub