ABSTRACT
Although much work remains to preserve surviving newsfilm and make it accessible to researchers, and although a large amount of footage known to have been shot has been lost, historic newsfilm is more available for study than many may think. Archives at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of South Carolina (USC), the Library of Congress, and the National Archives and Records Administration have provided on-site access to theatrical newsfilm for decades and are working to bring their collections online. Similarly, although lack of funding is a persistent challenge, UCLA’s KTLA collection, USC’s local television news collections, the University of Georgia’s WSB Collection, and the Boston TV News Digital Collection offer distinct examples, at different stages, of a growing trend to make local television newsfilm holdings more accessible on-site and online. Regardless of where and how they are accessed, theatrical and local television newsfilm collections demand specific strategies of investigation. In introducing key archival newsfilm collections, Chapters 13 through 19 propose strategies for investigating the materials they contain. Written by curators and archivists well accustomed to helping researchers, these chapters provide general guidance valuable to anyone working with newsfilm holdings as well as insights germane to particular collections.
