The American Archive for Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between GBH Archives and the Library of Congress, has received a four-year, $16 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to significantly enhance its collection of historic public media resources and make it more broadly available for scholars, researchers, educators and the public. Over the years, AAPB has digitized and preserved more than 150,000 files from 157 television and radio stations, of which more than 90,000 are publicly accessible via the AAPB website. With this grant — GBH’s largest ever — the archive will double in size. We spoke with Karen Cariani, the David O. Ives Executive Director of the GBH Archives, about the impact of the support.

What’s the most exciting thing about getting this grant?

For more than 50 years, public media stations have created hundreds of thousands of hours of high-quality educational, topical and cultural programming and given voice to diverse, historically excluded and underserved populations. Much of this material, however, is currently stored on endangered, decaying formats, such as videotape and film. It’s urgent that we identify and preserve it. This grant will help us make progress in preserving the history of public media overall.

How will you decide which content you’ll preserve?

We are excited about filling gaps in the AAPB collection. In addition to prioritizing media that feature untold stories and unheard voices, we’ll also focus on films from independent producers that may have been shown just once on air and never seen again. I’m also looking forward to preserving the nightly news shows from small stations across the country — those really are treasure troves, historical records of those local communities.

What challenges do you foresee with such a large grant?

Being from public media, we’ve learned to be so frugal. Having the opportunity to spend $16 million dollars in four years is astounding. We have a staff of 20 now and we’ll be able to hire several new staff members so that we can ramp up really fast.

Have AAPB and Mellon worked together before?

The Mellon Foundation originally funded GBH’s Open Vault, which provides public access to GBH's archive. That grant ultimately led to a series of grants funding GBH’s activities for the AAPB.

Has it been difficult to get funding for digitization and preservation work?

Yes, many organizations that used to fund digitization and preservation no longer do. So, we are competing with people who are trying to preserve photographs, documents and manuscripts, which is less expensive than preserving audio-visual materials. We’re always in a race against time. Every year that goes by, there's another format that becomes obsolete and endangered.

How did you come to work in archives?

I am actually not an archivist. I started at GBH working in production. I realized I was good at organizing materials and setting up databases to track them. I eventually helped GBH establish a process for archiving materials when a project ended and built a system of licensing our materials for other media outlets to use.

How does it feel to be the recipient of GBH’s biggest grant ever?

I'm really glad the archives and my staff are getting that kind of recognition. We have a world-class archive and a world-class staff. I'm passionate about getting this material accessible and out there.

Check out AAPB’s special collections here.
Explore GBH’s Open Vault here.