Safeguarding Appalshop's Moving Image and Paper Collections

FAIN: PG-271846-20

Appalshop, Inc. (Whitesburg, KY 41858-0743)
Caroline Rubens (Project Director: January 2020 to present)

The purchase of storage furniture and preservation supplies for improving long-term care of Appalshop’s institutional paper collections and an estimated 1.8 million feet of film footage recorded between 1969 and 2000, by Appalshop filmmakers. Appalshop’s audiovisual holdings consist largely of first-person accounts and direct documentation of events and activities in Appalachia, such as religious services, coal mining, folk artists at work, rural health care delivery, local politics, and traditional music. Included among the paper collections are the records of the Mountain Eagle, an influential East Kentucky weekly newspaper published from 1957 to 2005.

Appalshop Archive is requesting funds to improve storage of our collections that document central Appalachian history, culture and social issues, as well as the institution’s 50-year history. This project will significantly improve housing and storage conditions for our 1.8 million feet of 16mm film film materials and will expand our macrostorage and workspace capacity for processing and conserving our paper records and other collections.