Establishing Media Preservation Courses and Activities in Undergraduate Curriculums: Case Study - Harry S. Truman

Abstract

Heinle | Establishing Media Preservation Courses and Activities in Undergraduate Curriculums: Case Study - Harry S. Truman Establishing Media Preservation Courses and Activities in Undergraduate Curriculums: Case Study - Harry S. Truman Jeff Heinle Colby-Sawyer College Wonderful opportunities to teach students about movingimage preservation and the possibility to implement historical research activities and projects that could accompany such courses are left out ofundergraduate curriculums. Historians, media producers , media archives and, most importantly, the media artifact would receive benefits from creating media preservation courses at numerous universities and colleges in conjunction with regional media archives.1 For this article, the focus will be upon the type of historical research activities that students could undertake if educational institutions would establish a curricular relationship with a media archive. Media artifacts are often housed in various institutions: state and local historical societies, museums and libraries , as well as at local media outlets, such as radio and television stations.2 Unfortunately, many local TV news stations have discarded their "early" footage.3 Yet, recent footage would still provide ample opportunities to teach students about media preservation and implement course projects. By establishing relationships between history and mass communication departments and regional media archives in developing media preservation courses, students will learn about the importance of media preservation as it relates to their discipline. Furthermore, students will be helping provide a community service by aiding the archive in making the media artifacts more accessible to educators, media producers and the general public. The Need to Establish Media Preservation Courses In 1994, the National Film Preservation Board recommended to the Library of Congress that they would work toward creating, "... a systematic graduate program for educating new film preservation professionals and continuing educational opportunities for those already in the field.... Traditionally, film archivists have learned their skills on thejob."4 As of now, there are only two institutions in America offering film preservation courses: the Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, which offers a one-year program and, beginning in Fall 2001, the Moving Image Archive Studies program at UCLA in the Film and Television Department.5 However, both are graduate programs.6 In essence, there are no moving-image preservation courses offered for undergraduates. Traditionally, college courses, when examining media, have focused on Hollywood movies andnationally airedtelevision programming . However, in addition to analyzing Hollywood movies andnational networktelevision shows, regional media artifacts (localradio and television andhome movies) may also provepedagogically fruitful for student research projects in the area of history , communication and cultural studies. Similarly, within the preservation community, there has traditionally been an emphasis on Hollywood movies and national network television programs to the exclusion of regionally or locally produced moving-image artifacts. However, recently, regional media artifacts are beginning to receive greater preservation attention.7 Unlike Hollywood movies where there might be several theatrical release copies housed at various public and private collections, there is only one media artifact in existence for local news film segments and home movies. Therefore , local media artifacts need academic and public attention because of their rarity. The Status at Regional Media Archives Regional media archives are under funded, and, more importantly , understaffed, therefore, they do not have the resources to catalogue every item in their holdings. Undergraduate media preservation courses could help staff the archives to expedite this backlog. There are literally thousands of moving image documents uncatalogued and many archives do not have an online searchable database of their complete holdings.8 Therefore , educators, students, media producers and the general public do not have access to many media documents. This can create a gap in the historical record since no one knows that these media documents exist. From 1973-1993, 13 million dollars was awarded for film preservation both at public and private institutions. Yet, funding for a regional media archive is a hit or miss opportunity. Furthermore, funding is often limited to special projects and when the grant money runs out the staffing positions are terminated thus leaving other media artifacts in the archive uncatalogued. Since the major operating premise of media preservation is to attach staffing with funding, it can be years or decades before media artifacts are accessible to the public...