AMERICAN ARCHIVE CONTENT INVENTORY PROJECT

Grant: American Archive Content Inventory Project
Agency: Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)
Deadline: September 7, 2010 to January 31, 2011. Proposals will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Description: The television and radio archives of American public media are scattered throughout the country. To ensure that audio and visual materials are safe and accessible, and to help set priorities for the restoration, preservation and digitization of public media's legacy, CPB is conducting a system-wide inventory of public media assets. The American Archive Inventory Initiative will continue through May 2011, and will be the only full-scale, comprehensive inventory of public media assets.

The American Archive was conceived to support the restoration and digitization of existing analog content and to ensure that public media's legacy is preserved for future generations. Over the past two years, the American Archive has conducted a variety of foundational initiatives, including a large scale pilot project that involved 25 distinct radio and television stations. WGBH is the manager of the Content Inventory Project and, in cooperation with CPB, invites proposals to conduct an inventory of video and audio assets and participate in the important and historic American Archive Initiative.

Content Inventory Project grantee work is expected to occur sometime during a seven-month time period to commence in October 2010 and conclude on or before April 29, 2011. The work to be accomplished by grantees will be to:

• Locate and identify existing public broadcasting television and/or radio content held by the applicant's organization that is older than one year, including, but not limited to, original audio and moving image recordings, finished programs, unedited footage or "outtakes," audio or video collected for production research and master material. National programming that the applicant's organization did not produce and which is still within distribution rights should not be included.
• • Locate and identify existing electronic or paper inventories of archival materials (e.g.. Excel, Access, Filemaker, XML, CSV, Text, Word, ProTrack).
  • Convert paper inventories to electronic records. Consider scanning or photographing paper records.
  • If necessary, enhance existing inventories with additional data to meet minimum inventory requirements.
  • Determine if any content is not represented within existing inventories
• Create new records to represent content not previously inventoried. This can be done within an existing system or using the tools provided by the Content Inventory Project Team. Considering photographing assets. Deliver inventory records via individual entry or by exporting data from the applicant's system and uploading it as a batch for ingest. WGBH will provide technical assistance for batch upload/ingest to all grantees. The Content Inventory Project considers each physical or digital media item held by an eligible organization an "asset."

Fit for public broadcasting: This funding opportunity is specifically for public broadcasters and is intended to help public broadcasters take an inventory of their assets.

CPB has stated the following benefits of participation:

• Gain control of archival audio and video assets.
• Utilize inventory to mine collections for re-use and future projects.
• Record content in a searchable central repository of archival public media.
• Participate in CPB's American Archive Initiative and help inform its future.
• Eligibility to apply for future preservation and digitization funding.

Eligibility: Only the following types of organizations are eligible to apply: public TV or radio stations (or joint licensees), national public media organizations, independent producers for any of the above entities, and repositories holding material created by any of the above entities. In order to be eligible, organizations must:

• Possess radio and/or television content older than one year.
• Be willing and able to commit the time and staff required within the project timeline.
• Have the required internal resources or be able to secure external resources, capacity and staff to manage the contractual agreement.
• Have the basic infrastructure and ability to manage and provide financial records related to the contractual agreement.
• Be committed to saving/storing inventoried content for future use.

Anticipated funding: The cost to create new records for an applicant's assets should fall within a range of $2-3 per asset, which is the cost to inventory audio and moving image content as determined by the American Archive Pilot Program led by Oregon Public Broadcasting with support from CPB.

Grant awards will range from $5,000 to $20,000 or more depending on the amount of content to be inventoried. The cost to align existing inventories with the project requirements, whether paper or electronic, will vary. Funds will be granted from October 1, 2010 through February 28, 2011.

How to apply: The application has three required parts. Part I must be completed online. Parts II and III may be completed online but will also be accepted via fax, email or mail.

Resources:
Program Notice
Program Website
Sample Inventory Records
Project Timeline
Join the American Archive Content Inventory Project email list for project updates.
CPB and WGBH will provide information, resources and technical support to applicants and funded organizations. Contact them with any and all questions that arise while preparing applications.