Pratt Institute School of Information: “Students Race Against Time to Digitize Archives Of 1970s And ’80s LGBTQ+ Radio and TV Programs”
From the Pratt Institute:
During the rise of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in the 1970s and ’80s, visibility and community were crucial, and some leaders took to radio and television to elevate their voices and showcase culture. This spring semester, Pratt Institute School of Information students in Projects in Digital Archives digitized, catalogued, and curated online material from two of these programs: the Gay Morning America (GMA) public-access TV program (1984-85) and the Lesbian Nation radio program (1972-73).
Recorded on now-obsolete media and fragile after being boxed away for decades, digitization prevented these programs from being lost forever.
Anthony Cocciolo, dean of the School of Information who teaches Projects in Digital Archives, explained that he sees supporting grassroots archives as essential because “digitization projects such as these can be fairly costly.” Cocciolo has been leading his classes in digitization for the Lesbian Herstory Archives since 2010 and the LGBT Community Center National History Archive since 2019, recognizing that Pratt Manhattan’s home on 14th Street is just blocks from sites like the Stonewall Inn and the NYC AIDS Memorial, meaning that “in many ways, the LGBT civil rights movement is a local history story” to the Institute.
Read the Complete Article (approx. 1100 words)
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Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Collections, Digital Preservation, Funding, News, Preservation
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
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