Digital Preservation: USC Digital Repository Will Manage and Preserve 50 Years of Oscar Telecasts

The USC Digital Repository is a collaboration between the USC Libraries, USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education and USC Information Technology Services.
From the University of Southern California:

The University of Southern California Digital Repository, in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy), will manage and preserve a 320-terabyte collection of audiovisual materials created by the Academy over the last 50 years.
The Academy collection covers thousands of hours of video footage documenting the Academy Awards ceremony, and other programs and events that comprise the institutional history of the Academy. The collection also includes the Academy Film Archive’s digital restoration elements of film preservation projects. Highlights of recent digital restorations include feature films such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, The Big Country and Rashomon, as well as numerous animated films, documentaries and silent era shorts.
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The Academy began collecting materials that document cinema history shortly after its founding in 1927. The Academy Film Archive—established in 1991 to support film preservation and restoration as well as the study of motion pictures—is now home to one of the world’s most extensive film collections. The archive includes the personal collections of classic auteurs such as Alfred Hitchcock and Sam Peckinpah alongside those of contemporary filmmakers like Jim Jarmusch.
“Preserving the history of cinema in all its forms always has been a prime concern of the Academy,” said Michael Pogorzelski, director of the Academy Film Archive. “That history lives in film reels, movie posters, lobby cards—and now, digital files. We need to preserve our digital history alongside our celluloid heritage for the next century and beyond. That’s what this project with USC is all about.”
“To preserve a collection of this depth and breadth demands technical expertise and infrastructure that matches the significance of the materials,” said Sam Gustman, executive director of the USC Digital Repository. “I’m thrilled that the USC Digital Repository’s digitization, preservation and access systems will manage these materials for the Academy.”

Learn More About Preservation at the USC Digital Repository
See Also: USC Digital Repository Video (via YouTube)

Filed under: Awards, Digital Preservation, Libraries, News, Open Access, Preservation, Video Recordings