Many residents probably drive by the Internet Archive located in the former church at Clement and Funston, not fully realizing what its mission is. In short, it is aiming to be the digital archive for the internet, books, audio and now, broadcast TV.
Starting last September, the Internet Archive embarked on a project to collect all broadcast shows going back to the start of television, and make clips of them available online. That includes TV news broadcasts as well.
This week, the IA received a $1 million donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The money will be used to expand the video archive library, and invest in technologies that make it easier for video searching and browsing. They will also hire staff to improve the website.
Currently, the collection includes more than 400,000 news clips dating from 2009. The clips are mostly accessed for research by scholars, journalists and the general public. The search feature on the Internet Archive site uses closed captioning tags and other metadata from the clips. You can search for news clips across 22 networks including the majors like ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as cable channels like Comedy Central, MSNBC and Univision.
Try a search on “Tiger Woods” and immediately, clips from his 2009 scandal pop up on the screen ranging from CNN to local news shows that covered the incident ad nauseum. Not the best example of cultural bits we may want to have access to decades from now, but it illustrates the potential that a broadcast archive has for making our cultural history accessible.
The Internet Archive records the broadcasts and then makes them available online. They are currently in talks with television networks about accessing their library of shows as well, with the goal of making old episodes of television available in the archive. Imagine being able to access old clips of I Love Lucy, Dan Rather, 21 Jump Street, or Seinfeld anytime you want.
So now you know a little bit more about what’s happening behind the impressive facade at Clement and Funston – preserving our digital past.
Sarah B.