Preserving the Public Television Program, "American Black Journal"

FAIN: PW-50106-08

Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI 48824-3407)
Mark L. Kornbluh (Project Director: July 2007 to August 2009)
Dean Rehberger (Project Director: September 2009 to January 2012)

Preserving and providing access to the historic videotape collection and supporting production materials from the series "American Black Journal" produced by Detroit Public Television.

Michigan State University's MATRIX: Center for Humane Arts, Letters & Social Sciences Online and MSU Libraries Special Collections, partnering with Detroit Public Television and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History, propose to preserve and provide access to the historic videotape collection and 40 cubic feet of supporting production materials from DPTV's long-standing series "American Black Journal." The project will provide archival acquisition of videotapes and other materials into the Special Collections' archival vault, undertake preservation reformatting of ca. 980 tapes, and provide online access to a large subset of tapes selected with the project?s humanities scholars. Streaming video of the selected ABJ shows from 1968-1990, with catalog information, will be placed on ABJ Online; all supporting materials will be available in MSU Libraries' online catalog; and a set of all complete ABJ shows on DVD will be deposited at the Wright Museum's research library.