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Chairman Markey Supports APTS American Archive Initiative

WASHINGTON—February 14—House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) said he supports an initiative the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) is spearheading called the American Archive that will preserve the country’s audio, film and video history. (Download the text of Chairman Markey's remarks.)

Markey, who made his support known during APTS Capitol Hill Day 2007 this week, said: “Coupled with the Internet and broadband networks, in the digital era Public Television will be able to avail itself of new means to reach viewers, as well as innovative ways by which parents, teachers and kids can access the treasure trove of content that Public Television possesses. That is why I am very excited and supportive of the proposed American Archive project.”

The project is consistent with public broadcasting’s core mission, he said. “Because Public Radio and Television stations have such a rich tradition of documenting our national story, it is natural to want to harness the power of digital technology and telecommunications to preserve public broadcasting’s audio, film and video history, and to make it available to the American people,” Markey said.

APTS President and CEO John Lawson said: “Public Television and radio stations have a long history of documenting our national heritage—like museums and universities. We see our efforts in this regard as an extension of our duties as cultural heritage institutions. Unfortunately, many of these collections are decaying from the ravages of time and will soon be lost forever.”

That’s one reason why Public Television stations and the Library of Congress (LOC) are laying the technological groundwork to make a treasure trove of content available to the public through the American Archive—the future centerpiece of public broadcasting’s digital library, Lawson said. APTS is launching this digital library with its station partners, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS.

To make the American Archive a reality, Public Television executives will ask Members of Congress in the coming days to repurpose digital funds for the development of the archive.

Since 2001, Congress has funded the build-out of the Public Television and radio digital infrastructure, and has already allowed a portion of those funds to be used for creation of digital content. In addition to digitizing content, funding would support cataloguing, storing and preserving existing and new content on station-based servers, and will leverage the capabilities of the new Public Television interconnection system. It would also create tools for the public to search for and access content through the Internet and other communications platforms.

The problem is, unlike history books, which are widely available in libraries and on the Internet, the great majority of public broadcasting audio, film and video history sits in collections that are locked away and unavailable to the American public. The American Archive would serve a variety of purposes. It would allow educators and students to choose content from which to create unique, digital learning materials capable of being presented in a variety of formats. Historians, journalists and documentary filmmakers could take advantage of the archive’s thousands of hours of raw footage for research purposes or for creating new educational works. Most importantly, digitizing these vast archives will allow the public to reap the benefits of its years of investment in public broadcasting. While challenges around intellectual property rights remain, APTS is working towards a comprehensive legislative solution that would cover future content as well as archival content.

Markey said he would work with Public Television stations through these challenges. “As issues arise regarding the cost of digitization or intellectual property rights I am eager to work with public broadcasting to find solutions so that this project can become a success and a model for other institutions, such as museums and universities,” he said.

The idea behind the creation of the American Archive is largely the result of the work of the CPB Digital Rights Working Group, which began as a system-wide exploration of the opportunities to expand public broadcasting’s service to the American public. Among those examined was the creation of an archive containing the audio and video collections from public stations, national institutions, local libraries and historical organizations, and educational institutions. Based on the model created by the BBC called the Creative Archive, APTS has been working with Thirteen/WNET, WGBH, CPB and PBS, as well as the LOC, in the development of a similar concept for this country.

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