Students training in the Media Archival Studies specialization of UCLA’s Master of Library and Information Science degree program recently assisted in recovering over one hundred otherwise lost digital recordings for the AAPB’s This Way Out Collection, which features more than 1,700 episodes from the only internationally distributed weekly LGBTQ radio program.
Recovered episodes were secured through a project of the School of Education and Information Studies Center for Preservation of Audiovisual Heritage (CPAH), which provides preservation assistance to under-resourced Los Angeles-based community organizations with rare audiovisual collection materials that document the history and cultural diversity of the greater LA area. Freeing content from obsolete and deteriorating carrier media, CPAH provides high-quality digital copies to participating partner organizations, preserving community memories to keep local cultural heritage alive.
The Center is co-directed by IS Professor Shawn VanCour and IS Library and Media Preservation Lab Manager Casey Winkleman, who elaborated on their process for the This Way Out materials and the role of CPAH and their lab within UCLA’s MLIS program.
“CPAH was approached by This Way Out‘s producers in 2022,” said VanCour. “They brought to the lab a dozen Jaz disks that contained the original born-digital episodes for their independently produced, LA-based radio show from the late 1990s and early 2000s, along with many of the associated production files. Using the lab’s digital forensics software, CPAH staff and students were able to successfully image all but one, damaged disk. File recovery was then performed on the damaged disk, which yielded a number of additional audio recordings whose embedded metadata (including episode titles and airdates) was still intact. The producers were able to provide additional metadata for each episode and selected AAPB as the preferred permanent home for their collection, which is now available online to audiences throughout the country and world.”
The Center operates out of the IS Department’s IS Library and Media Preservation Lab, where students use specialized playback and digitization equipment to help transfer and restore community-held collections of film, video, and audio media as part of their coursework and independent practicum exercises to help prepare them for their intended careers in media archiving and preservation.
“The lab provides media archival students with opportunities to learn how to digitize, preserve, and describe at-risk media for Los Angeles-based community archives while earning their MLIS degrees,” said Winkleman.
Students make a profound and lasting impact by working directly with local cultural heritage organizations and creating access to rare archival materials to let community members see and hear their own histories.”
Founded in 2022, CPAH has worked to date with several dozen LA organizations, including local schools, museums, historical societies, community broadcasters, independent content creators and artist collectives, film appreciation societies, arts festivals, and online archives. Its projects have included media formats ranging from shellac records to professional and consumer film, video, and audio tapes, as well as born-digital content on vulnerable homemade CDs, DVDs, and other at-risk storage devices.
CPAH is pleased to have been a partner in This Way Out’s preservation project and is happy to see these important and valuable materials now accessible to a broader audience through the online collections of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting,” said VanCour.
Center projects, he added, are ongoing, with he and Winkleman continuing to expand their list of active partners and supported formats.
For further information about current projects or questions about CPAH activities and resources, organizations or individuals may contact cpah@g.ucla.edu.
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