Implementation Project: Archives of Iowa Broadcasting Creation of Online Media Library

FAIN: PW-258991-18

Wartburg College (Waverly, IA 50677-2215)
Amy M. Moorman (Project Director: July 2017 to October 2020)
Fred D. Ribich (Project Director: October 2020 to November 2021)
Kay Grigsby (Project Director: November 2021 to November 2023)

Improved public access for the Archives of Iowa Broadcasting through the cataloging of 28,000 items and digitization of over 2,000 broadcast tapes from KWWL-TV, a flagship public news station in eastern Iowa. The collection documents the history and development of community radio and television in the state and includes oral histories, documents, photographs, and artifacts dating from 1922 to 2007.

The Archives of Iowa Broadcasting (AIB) contains oral histories, documents, photographs, promotional materials, artifacts and over 28,000 audiovisual recordings (1922-2007) that document the history and development of radio and television in Iowa. These represent a unique body of records all too often lost due to the ephemeral nature of original broadcasts and the degradation and obsolescence of the media carriers that captured them. This grant project would create an online media catalog of the more than 28,000 items in the AIB audiovisual collection. The grant would also involve digitization of 2,230 videotapes of broadcast footage from KWWL-TV, a flagship news station in eastern Iowa. Digitizing these materials will allow for their preservation.  The files will be made available online through the media catalog. Creating an online catalog of Iowa Broadcasting materials and beginning to digitize our fragile media holdings are essential to expanding future use of the AIB collection.