University of Washington Libraries is New Home for Decades of KIRO-TV (Seattle) News Video

From the University of Washington:

Netflix and CNN both sought decades-old KIRO-TV news footage about serial killer Ted Bundy for documentaries underway. And local public radio affiliate KUOW needed audio from old news reports for a story about Seattle houseboat owners.

But to access those old Seattle TV news clips, these producers didn’t contact KIRO — they called UW Libraries and talked with film archivist Hannah Palin.

That’s because last fall, the local station donated thousands of hours of old news videotapes of its news broadcasts from the 1970s through about the year 2000, about 15,000 videotapes in all.

But to access those old Seattle TV news clips, these producers didn’t contact KIRO — they called UW Libraries and talked with film archivist Hannah Palin.

She said the donated tapes run from 1975 to the early 2000s, all content officially still owned by KIRO. And fortunately, she also has KIRO’s script database from those years, so when asked for a tape she can find it in the archives.

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Palin said she and colleagues are still trying to determine how much of the KIRO tape donation they will digitize and put online. It may be a few years before the donated tapes are all processed, she said, but they hope to have an online finding aid soon, maybe even in the next six months.

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A Few Examples of Local TV News Video/Film Collections From U.S. Cities

See Also: Some Boston TV News Archival Materials Available via WGBH Open Vault

See Also: University of North Texas Libraries Placing Digitized News Film (1950-1979) From NBC 5 / KXAS-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth) on Portal to Texas History (2015)

See Also: University of Virginia Library Releases Online Archive of Historical TV News Footage (2013)

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Libraries, News, Reports