25 minute read
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
doi:10.5260/chara.22.2.8 Date of Review: September 10, 2020
Composite Score: HHH 7/8
Reviewed by:
Warren Bareiss University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, South Carolina Lizah Ismail Limestone College, Gaffney, South Carolina <wbareiss@uscuspstate.edu>
<iismail@limestone.edu>
Abstract The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) features almost 40,000 hours of audio and video recordings produced among noncommercial broadcasting stations across the United States from the late 1940s to the 2010s. All 40,000 hours of broadcasts are accessible at WGBH in Boston and at the Library of Congress. A large portion of those hours—about 7,000 programs—is directly available via online streaming at no cost via <https://americanarchive.org/>. Data pertaining to the entire collection is also accessible via the website. AAPB offers a wealth of audio and video programs for teaching, scholarship, and entertainment in a user-friendly interface that makes browsing and searching AAPB relatively easy for novice and expert searchers.
Pricing Options AAPB is freely accessible.
Product Overview/Description The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collection of nearly 40,000 hours of audio and video recordings produced among more than 100 public broadcasting stations across the United States. All 40,000 hours of broadcasts are accessible at WGBH in Boston and at the Library of Congress. A large portion of those hours—about 7,000 programs—is directly available via online streaming at no cost via <https://americanarchive.org/>. Some of the collection not available online can also be accessed on a limited basis for research. Data pertaining to the entire collection is also accessible via the website. This review will focus primarily on programming and information freely available to any online users.
Public broadcasting in the United States was initially envisioned as a decentralized system of local stations that would produce much of their own content and drawing the balance from other stations in the network (Engelman, 1996, p. 2, 63-106, 165-187). This arrangement meant that archiving of programs, if conducted at all, was left to hundreds of local radio and television affiliates and scattered archives. Most programming has been lost forever and whatever was preserved was stored in less-than-ideal facilities, according to AAPB project directors, Alan Gevinson and Karen Cariani (personal interview, July 7, 2020).
In 2007, the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) proposed to Congress that a national archive be funded to preserve tens of thousands of radio and television programs in a publicly accessible, climate controlled facility. Congress was initially supportive, and a pilot project was undertaken in 2009. Between 2010 and 2012, the American Archive Content Inventory project was underway; however, funding was drastically cut in 2011. Fortunes changed again in 2013 when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which distributes Congressional funding throughout the U.S public radio and television systems contracted with Crawford Media Services to digitize 35,000 hours of programming. WGBH in Boston and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. were selected as permanent stewards of the collection (“A Brief History of the AAPB”). Today, the entire collection is available for study at both sites, and a large portion is available online. The collection continues to grow as programs are digitized (Alan Gevinson and Karen Cariani, personal interview, July 7, 2020).
The online collection is expansive, to say the least. Ranging from news broadcasts, to arts programming, to talk shows and children’s programming, AAPB provides a seemingly endless amount of information about life in the United States across eight decades.
Sampling a few items, we started with a discussion program featuring the oddly mixed pairing of William F. Buckley and Groucho Marx. Once started, the program was hard to turn away from. Clearly, the two men had widely divergent political perspectives, and yet each clearly respected each other. The discussion crackled with insightful, profound, spontaneous, and sometimes cleverly barbed repartee rarely seen in television today.
Another program we sampled was an interview with Muhammad Ali who had just been stripped of his title, and like the previously mentioned program, dialog between Ali and the show’s host was more than thoughtful. It was rich with nuance and references to culture, religion, politics, and history.
While some of the terminology spoken has changed over the decades, both programs that we initially sampled touch upon topics that are as fresh today as they were when recorded: racism, intolerance, potentially offensive humor, and mediated representations of cultural groups. Unlike most broadcast and cable offerings today, however, these programs share a characteristically generous notion of time— time to really think and talk things through, time to respectfully disagree, time to let thoughts flow in multiple directions in a tempered, respectful meeting of the minds. The interviews are heavy on thoughtful discourse and light on staged performance. Rather than a slash and burn approach to issues of the day, these discussions leave the viewer with things to consider. This sense of patience might be said to be the hallmark of public broadcasting, and one can sense it in all kinds of programming throughout the online collection.
Dozens of programs in the collection are sorted into topics titled Exhibits and Special Programs, both of which feature audio and video programs illustrating significant themes, topics, and events (see Figure 1). Among the 11 current Exhibits, for example, one focuses on the Black Power Movement from the mid-1960s into the early 1970s.
This Exhibit features entire documentaries from the era, plus fulllength episodes of programming produced by and for Black audiences: Black Journal and Soul! Detailed contextual information for each featured program, and a bibliography lists sources for further reading. Other exhibits include such topics as climate change, historic preservation, and protest in America.
Similarly, 50 Special Collections organize video and audio files based on specific topics. Some Special Collections tend to be more focused than Exhibits, with content sometimes limited to specific series. For example, Freedom Riders Interviews consists of 124 raw interviews used in the production of an American Experience documentary, Freedom Riders. Other Special Collections are more similar to Exhibits, drawing from many different sources pertaining to a single topic. The Jewish American Heritage Collection, for instance, includes almost 400 radio and television programs about Jewish life in the U.S. produced between 1945 and 2017, and the LGBT+ Collection includes more than 500 programs produced from the 1950s to 2018.
Each Special Collection also features links to other collections in the AAPB related to the respective topic or to collections housed elsewhere. For example, a collection of interviews from the series, Vietnam: A Television History, links to the Vietnam War page of the National Archives, among other sources of information.
Other links featured on the AAPB home page provide background information on the main collection, current projects pertaining to expansion of the collection, funding sources, and participatory organizations.
User Interface/Navigation/Searching AAPB’s home page provides a variety of gateways to the content on offer. A link at the top right clearly directs users to information About AAPB via a dropdown menu which includes access to the vision, mission, and history of the AAPB and also to FAQs, search help, new
FIGURE 1 AAPB Examples of Exhibits and Special Programs
content, and AAPB’s contact information. Users can also discover specific content (namely Special Collections and Exhibits) via this dropdown menu, thus providing users with two additional access points to AAPB’s main content attractions. A link labeled For Participating Organizations providing information for organizations interested in contributing content and a link labelled Donate round off the navigational tools at the top right of the page.
Users who first land on AAPB’s home page will likely be drawn to the single search box in the top and middle of the page and perhaps more specifically to the interactive carousel images of AAPB program highlights below it. A photo in blue tint featuring a studio camera operator in action forms the backdrop for all of this, adding a splash of color to the page.
Scrolling down, AAPB’s home page employs a variety of colorful backdrops for the content currently showcased. For the more skilled user, the Advanced Search option link directly below the search box and the navigation links (to Organizations, Special Collections, Exhibits, Help Us, Browse, and Our Story) directly above the search box provide additional and easy access points to the variety of content that AAPB offers. The Advanced Search option allows users to go beyond a keyword search with the ability to search for “All of these words,” “The exact phrase or words,” “Any of these words,” and “None of these words.” The user can also choose to search by title when using this search option.
Whether using the simple keyword search or the advanced search option, users will be taken to AAPB’s search results page which includes options to filter retrieved results and options for viewing search results. The results can be filtered in a variety of ways:
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n Media Type permits visitors to limit their search to just video with audio or to just audio. Genre sorts by programming subject categories such as Children, Debate, News Report, Radio Theater, and Public Service Announcements, to name just a few options. Topic sorts programs according to 48 topical categories such as LGBT, Global Affairs, Parenting, and Philosophy. Asset Type offers viewing options such as Episode, Segment, Raw Footage, and Clip. Contributing Organizations sorts content according to source categories such as local PBS stations and other content providers, for example, Pacific Radio Archives and the Library of Congress. Producing Organizations distinguishes among specific originating media sources such as CSPAN, producers such as Ken Burns, PBS affiliates, and institutions of higher education Georgetown University and Purdue University.
n Date provides options to search for an exact date or a range of dates.
In addition to these filters, options to view content by format type are featured. Content material in AAPB are categorized into the following areas:
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n Available Online is the default where video or audio content can be accessed freely via the Online Reading Room, AAPB’s online viewing/listening gateway. All Digitized is video and audio content available online as described previously as well as content available only at the Library of Congress and at WGBH PBS station in Boston. All Records are both digitized and not yet digitized content. This category totals 2.5 million records. Therefore, when users choose to view All Records in the search results, they will also see content records that only contain metadata information without the accompanying digitized audio or video content.
Users can choose to view search results in list format with accompanying description, in a gallery style format, or as a short list consisting only of program titles. Also, search results can be viewed 10 to a page up to 100 to a page. These options are found in the top right corner above the results page.
AAPB employs the scroll down feature to highlight content areas that are also accessible elsewhere on the site as described above, akin to what other digital streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Films on Demand are doing. Scrolling down the home page, users first see the About content and news from the AAPB blog with links to AAPB social media platforms on Twitter and Facebook.
Next, AAPB’s Special Collections content greets visitors with a dynamic background of moving images consisting of monochromatic newsreels from various programs. This forms the backdrop for the interactive carousel of images highlighting this collection. The carousel is employed in a similar fashion for the Exhibits collection which is the next content area as the user continues to scroll down the page. Here, the backdrop features a photo from the 1980 PBS election coverage in a reddish-orange hue.
Under each of the Special Collections and Exhibits carousel of images, users will find a link to view all programs in each of those options. Clicking on this link displays these programs in gallery fashion listed in no particular order. For example, in Special Collections, the PBS Newshour program is juxtaposed next to BirdNote which is an audio nature program. Choosing a program in Special Collections takes the user to a page full of relevant resources including information on the collection’s background and links to the Featured Items highlighting specific content and/or individuals featured in that collection. Users must agree to the terms of use of the Online Reading Room prior to playing digital content.
The link to Other Resources takes visitors to outside websites and archives. For example, the BirdNote collection links to National Audubon, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Bird Life International (see Figure 2). Unfortunately, some links to external sources might end up as broken links.
The main attraction is the audio and video collection from which Exhibits and Special Collections are derived. Users can choose to view the whole collection or search within the collection. Choosing to view the whole collection takes the user to AAPB’s search results page populated by all items in that collection. For example, for the BirdNote collection, all 272 records or content items are displayed with filtering and viewing options (described above). For the Exhibits collection, users are able to explore topics via an overview of the topic as well as individual sections within that topic, each of which contains a wealth of information via links to both internal and external resources, including digital clips where available.
For example, for the Exhibit topic Voices from the Southern Civil Rights Movement, all 34 records in that collection are listed. Also included in Exhibits are Research Notes directing interested users to related sources for further exploration. Each record contains all tags (search fields) which are the search filters described earlier in this section (Media Type, Genre, etc.). Additional tags can include Duration, Subjects, Credits, and Citations (APA, MLA, and Chicago style formats are provided).
A welcome feature is the transcript which accompanies the AAPB record (where applicable) and is optional for the user. A further bonus is the ability to search within the transcript.
Continuing to scroll down AAPB’s home page reveals donating information, a graphic display of browsable Topics (see Figure 3), an interactive map of participating organizations, and finally, a five-minute video introducing “the treasures of public broadcasting.” All have colorful backdrops consisting of selected photos from AAPB’s archives. Additional access points to content described above plus other information including terms of use and how to obtain metadata (export records from AAPB) are at the bottom of AAPB’s home page.
Critical Evaluation
CONTENT
Writing a thorough content evaluation of such a vast collection is challenging. The wide range of topics and immense number of audio and video programs defy cursory review, and that is arguably the collection’s foremost asset. Even limiting evaluation to what is freely accessible online, the sheer number of local, regional, and national programs addressing issues in science, health, religion, politics, music, history, and a host of other general topics over a span of 70 years is boundless.
The easiest place to start is with technical quality. Most of the thousands of audio and video selections offered by AAPB have been in storage at local public and radio stations for decades. Usually, “storage” simply means the audio record being shelved and stacked in closets and whatever other spaces happened to be available amidst modestly funded broadcasting facilities where space is always in demand (Alan Gevinson and Karen Cariani, personal interview, July 7, 2020). Video and audio tapes deteriorate over time, and even the best video from decades ago can seem blurry when contrasted with today’s digital standards. Storage conditions, age, and recording technologies are important factors to consider, especially considering that the quality of the files offered by AAPB is excellent. Sometimes, video images are somewhat blurred or distorted around the edges, but given the circumstances of their initial production and subsequent storage, they are well-preserved and clear. Audio, too, is almost always crisp, apart from rare audio dropouts and minor distortions.
A second way to evaluate content is by considering potential uses of the collection. With this question in mind, the value of the AAPB cannot be underestimated. The collection offers a number of possible uses that come readily to mind. First, the files are informative on a seemingly endless range of topics. One could argue that decades-old educational programming has become outdated; however, examination of the files reveals a tremendous amount of material that remains fresh, even when produced decades ago. At the very least, the files can provide a starting point for further learning.
Educators building online courses will find the collection to be particularly rewarding. Short audio and video clips go a long way toward enlivening online instruction, and this collection offers a treasure trove for teachers in search of material to add depth, illustration, and variety to their online lessons.
Specific topics that can be used for instructional purposes are limited only by teachers’ and students’ willingness to explore. An issue that many college and university classes will be discussing this year, for instance, is about the symbolism of historical monuments. AAPB features a radio discussion program on that very topic, explaining that “memorials often tell us more about their creators than what or whom they memorialize.” Just listening to the first few minutes, we learned that, in the United States, controversy and contradictory public sentiment about specific monuments is as old as the nation itself.
FIGURE 3 AAPB List of Browsable Topics
Second, researchers will not only be interested in what is said among the programs, but how it is said. The collection is like an archeological excavation of communication through time, demonstrating how people communicated about topics from one year to the next. This includes not only the words that people spoke, but the ways in which topics were framed, and perhaps most significantly, how such speech and framing changed over time. For example, a quick search for “pollution” links to discussion programs and news coverage from the 1950s all the way to 2019.
Taking the archeological metaphor a step further, AAPB is not just about discourse through time, but also across space. This is yet another promising dimension of the collection. While the PBS programming such as The PBS NewsHour offers a national network perspective, most of the programs were produced among small, local radio and television stations all across the country. These local perspectives cannot be underestimated for researchers looking for nuanced differences in the ways that topics have been covered and stories have been told among different cities and states.
Finally, the collection is valuable simply for its entertainment value with hundreds of dance, music, and theater performances to choose from. Some are short performances lasting a few minutes, while others include full concerts and plays. For example, one of us is a radio theater enthusiast, and he found a deeply moving drama about a former concentration camp prisoner wracked with guilt for having participated in the camp symphony. Other visitors looking for examples of music, dance, theater, and documentary will almost certainly find something to pique their interest.
SEARCHING AND NAVIGATION
Searching AAPB is relatively easy. Simple keyword searching using the single search box allows inexperienced users to explore desired content without much effort because search results are presented with numerous filters, as described in a previous section of this review. These filters help in not only identifying the type of content available within the desired search (by genre or topic), but also by the format (moving images or sound) and date range, among other options.
We attempted a keyword search for “food” which retrieved 14,430 results at the time of this review, our intention being to look for cooking shows made popular by public broadcasting. By utilizing the available filters, the search results revealed that 11,794 records were of moving images and 2,636 are audio. “Food” was distributed throughout almost all of the available Genres and Topics choices ,with 76 results under the Instructional genre and 632 results under the Food and Cooking topic. Without these filters, users would need to sift through records with the word “food” in it, including such terms as “food stamps” and “food drive.” AAPB does provide links to Searching the Website and searching help in their FAQs if instruction is needed.
leave out words “food stamps” and “food drive” in the search results when searching for the key word “food”). A possible challenge when deciding on filters is understanding what constitutes a particular genre. For example, why are some cooking shows tagged as being in the Magazine genre while others are tagged as Instructional and others still are tagged as Documentary? One would think that all cooking shows would be categorized as either Instructional (strictly how to cook) or Magazine (cooking instruction, plus additional social/cultural content such as visiting a farmer’s market and interviewing a restaurant owner), but not both.
Results can be narrowed using one or more filters, and users are able to navigate their chosen filters by following the breadcrumb trail at the top of the page which is a helpful feature that may appeal to more advanced searchers. Filters can be cleared or edited this way instead of via the filter column on the left side of the page. It is important to note that AAPB indicates that cataloging is still in progress and available tags do not represent all of AAPB’s content.
When clicking on an item in the results page, the user is taken to the item record which is clearly tagged, allowing for easy navigation to hyperlinked resources embedded in the record. For example, the file titled American Experience; John Brown’s Holy War; Interview with Bruce Olds, 1 of 3, contains a Series tag that provides a link to all episodes in the American Experience series. Not all item records contain the Subjects tag, but all should contain the Topics tag with hyperlinks to those topics. These topics are broad and will not help users narrow down their search, whereas information found in the Subjects tag does provide search terms that would allow users to focus on specific content. A case in point: the American Experience item record described above contains the hyperlinked topics Biography, History, and Race and Ethnicity, while the Subjects tag consists of the following (not hyperlinked): American history, African Americans, Civil rights, Slavery, Abolition–i.e., a more precise representation of what this particular program is about. Diligent users would need to jot down these search terms if they wanted to pursue this specific content further.
Item records containing a video or audio program allow users to fast forward (or backward) among the content with the option to share a segment by copying the URL or by embedding it. Many users are unlikely to have problems utilizing this feature because digital streaming media is now ubiquitous in many households.
The accompanying transcript, where available, is optional and when chosen, is displayed next to the program with the added bonus of the transcript being searchable. We searched for “Julia” within the transcript for the program episode “Julia Child” from the series Words on Words, and each occurrence of “Julia” in the transcript was highlighted.
AAPB provides various access points to the same content (see the User Interface/Navigation/Searching section above) which some may see as redundant, but we find that such variety is helpful in catering to the different skill levels and preferences of users. A necessary additional access point, however, is the ever-present search box at the top right of the page with the accompanying Advanced Search link whenever the user lands on the search results page or an item record page, so the back arrow need not be utilized. The arguably cluttered home page with the different colors and moving images may be not to everyone’s preference, but it does arguably bring educational programming to life. AAPB states that they are “actively cognizant of accessibility.” In addition to tools such as transcribing the video content described above, AAPB’s accessibility statement can be found at <https://www.wgbh.org/foundation/accessibility-statement>. A less debatable drawback, however, is the incorrect citation formats provided for the Chicago, MLA, and APA style formats, an unfortunate recurring issue in many other academic research databases as well.
Overall, AAPB offers an abundance of audio and video programs on a vast array of topics useful in teaching and scholarship. It is offered in a user-friendly interface that makes both browsing and searching relatively easy and accessible for both novice and expert searchers.
Competitive Products AAPB is unique in its expansive emphasis on U.S. public broadcasting, particularly in providing access to local and regional content produced by the public broadcasting stations of small and medium-sized cities, bringing their perspectives to a global audience. This is in addition to the national programs such as PBS NewsHour and Frontline that are also accessible in AAPB. Another unique feature of AAPB is its listing of programs that are not yet digitized, but available onsite at WGBH in Boston and at the Library of Congress. Additionally, AAPB provides access to thousands of metadata records of programs that are not available in either the online format or at a physical location.
A resource that features a range of media programming content similar to AAPB (programming that includes theater, children’s programs, cooking shows, documentaries and news reports, just to name a few) is Infobase’s Films on Demand <https://www.infobase.com/tag/ films-on-demand/>). Films on Demand does, in fact, include content from public broadcasting stations (such as Rick Steve’s travel shows, for example), but that is really where the similarity ends.
Another resource, the Internet Archive (<https://archive.org/>) might be the closest to AAPB in terms of media content offerings (offering both video and audio content) but again, the similarity is limited. This is because the Internet Archive is far more expansive in terms of media genres and other content. It not only provides access to millions of media texts (movies, music recordings, and television shows), it also provides access to millions of books, images and other content that is unique to them including thousands of items in its software collection.
Other resources providing searchable video archives include the Moving Image Archive (<https://libraries.indiana.edu/moving-image-archive>) and the C-SPAN Video Library (<https://www.c-span. org/about/videoLibrary/>).
Contact Information
Library of Congress
Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation 19053 Mt. Pony Rd. Culpeper, Virginia 22701-7551
WGBH Educational Foundation
One Guest Street Boston, Massachusetts 02135 Phone (617) 300-3300 (WGBH Audience and Member services) E-mail: <aapb_notifications@wgbh.org> Producer URL: <https://www.wgbh.org/> Product URL: <https://americanarchive.org/>
Review Scores Composite: HHH 7/8
The maximum number of stars in each category is 5. Content: HHHH AAPB offers an abundance of audio and video programs on a vast array of topics useful in teaching and scholarship.
User Interface/Searchability: HHH 1/2 AAPB has a user-friendly interface that makes both browsing and searching relatively easy and accessible for both novice and expert searchers.
Pricing: N/A
Purchase/Contract Options: HHHH AAPB’s Online Reading Room Rules of Use and Terms of Use outline policies that include authorized use of content, copyright, authorized users, as well as privacy.
Purchase & Contract Provisions This is a freely available product. AAPB does require users to comply with their Online Reading Room Rules of Use (ORR Rules of Use) which ensures that the freely available content AAPB provides is in accordance with copyright, including the fair use doctrine. The ORR Rules of Use outlines, among other things, information on authorized users and authorized uses of AAPB content. Refer to <https://americanarchive.org/legal/orr-rules> for more information. AAPB’s Terms of Use <https://americanarchive.org/legal/tou> includes information on infringement of copyright and submission and withdrawal of content by contributors.
Authentication This is not applicable for AAPB.
Author’s References “A Brief History of the AAPB.” Retrieved from <https://www.scribbr. com/apa-examples/cite-a-website/>, August 18, 2020. Engelman, R. (1996). Public radio and television in America; A political history. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Free Text Keywords: Educational television | Library of Congress | Public broadcasting | Public radio | Public television | Television history | United States broadcasting history | WGBH Boston
Primary Category: Multidisciplinary (or interdisciplinary)
Secondary Categories: Other
Type of product being reviewed: Streaming video
Target Audience: Secondary; General public; Undergraduate (including community colleges); Graduate/Faculty/Researcher
Access: Open Access (OA)
About the Authors
Lizah Ismail is Associate Professor and Director of the A.J. Eastwood Library at Limestone University in Gaffney, SC. She was formerly the Outreach and Instruction Librarian where she oversaw and coordinated all outreach efforts with distance students as well as oversaw and conducted library instruction for both traditional and distance students. Prior to coming to Limestone, Lizah was Coordinator of Public Services at Marywood University in Scranton, PA and Head of Reference and Information Literacy at Misericordia University in Dallas, PA. She is a member of the PASCAL (Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries) Board of Directors and serves on the Editorial Boards of ACRL’s College and Research Libraries, and the Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning. She has presented her research on non-traditional students, Net Generation students, and the use of Course Management Software in library services at several conferences. She has also published on these topics. She received her MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her MA in Communications from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. n
Warren (“Wren”) Bareiss is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of South Carolina Upstate. He has taught courses and conducted research pertaining to communication and culture for over twenty years, most recently specializing in relationships among narrative, culture, and health. He is the creator and coordinator of the Health Communication minor at Upstate. Wren has published research in SAGE Research Methods Cases, The Journal of Medical Humanities, Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness & Medicine, and Popular Music and Society among other publications. Most recently, he edited a book (forthcoming, 2020) on communicative aspects of non-suicidal self-injury for which he wrote a chapter on self-injury narratives. He teaches courses in research methods, health narratives, and health messaging campaigns, and related topics. Wren earned his PhD in at Indiana University and his master’s at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a post-doctoral graduate certificate in heath communication from the University of South Carolina in 2014. n
