Tuesday, February 16, 2010

San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive

The J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University maintains an excellent moving image collection, the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive. According to the collection's website:

"Established in 1982 by curator Helene Whitson, this is a unique moving image collection that chronicles sixty landmark years of social history and cultural revolution in the San Francisco Bay Area. Over 4000 hours of local newsfilm, documentaries and other video programs have been donated to the J. Paul Leonard Library by broadcasting organizations, production companies and private individuals, to be preserved as an academic resource.

A long-term, project has begun to digitally remaster and make available online all of the TV Archive's film & video material. The footage is being hosted on a searchable collections page within SF State's digital virtual information archive (DIVA)."

Especially rich is the KQED collection, examples of which can be viewed online. It's well worth checking out.