New Public Television Partnership Receives Major Program Preservation Award from the Library of Congress.

NEW YORK -- Thirteen/WNET and WGBH Team up with PBS and New York University to Plan Groundbreaking Archive to Save Programs

Thirteen/WNET New York, one of America's leading producers of public television programming, has been awarded close to $3 million by the Library of Congress for Preserving Digital Public Television, a new three-year planning project that will set the groundwork for preserving digital television programming.

Joining Thirteen as partners on the project are public broadcaster WGBH Boston, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and New York University. All four institutions will work together to plan standards, procedures and facilities which will lead to creating a long term preservation archive for public television programming produced in digital formats.

"Public television programs such as Great Performances, NOVA, Nature and Frontline are important cultural artifacts," said Ken Devine, vice president and chief technology officer for Thirteen. "Over time, they have become an important source for documenting ideas and transmitting values. Moreover, they are a critical record of significant historical events and individuals. Preserving them is an important legacy for the future, but because the digital environment is so new, we don't know the best way to protect them yet. Just as programs on videotape can be lost without proper storage or playback equipment, in their own way, programs in digital formats are in just as much danger - without proper plans for long-term preservation, storage and playback, they, too, could easily disappear forever."

The Preserving Digital Public Television project is the first step in tackling this problem. It will inventory the at-risk program materials held at each public television organization, establish criteria and procedures for creating the archive, research technology issues, and outline operating policies for a cooperative facility. The next stage after this planning will be to make such an archive operational.

The funds are being made available through the Library's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP), which is supporting building new frameworks for long-term preservation of America's cultural materials that are at-risk because there are few standards for digital longevity. This is one of eight awards being made through the program, and the only one that is aimed at preserving any type of television.

"As one of the country's major public television production centers, Thirteen has been an important innovator in technical developments. This partnership marks an exciting opportunity to make new advancements in the field while ensuring that the rich cultural legacy of public television will be protected well into the future. We are delighted that Thirteen will be continuing its leadership through this unique Library of Congress initiative," Devine said.

Even though practices to preserve analog videotapes are well established, the Library of Congress acknowledges that procedures, standards and structures have not yet been created that can guarantee the long-term survival of television programs produced only in digital formats. Entirely new technical and operational systems have to be developed if digitally produced programs will remain available and accessible now and into the distant future. NDIIPP funds are earmarked specifically to plan these ground-breaking preservation activities.

Thirteen and WGBH are especially well positioned to tackle this problem as the largest producing stations for public television, offering such influential series as WGBH's American Experience, Frontline and Nova and Thirteen/WNET's American Masters, Great Performances and Nature. The stations control many of the digital program materials considered at-risk and in need of new preservation strategies.

Both stations have extensive libraries of videotapes as well as other program materials. In addition, WGBH maintains the WGBH Media Library and Archives, which is the largest station-based collection in the system and has been a pioneer among television archives. "The fragility and limited shelf life of digital recordings is not widely recognized," said David Liroff, vice president and chief technology officer at WGBH. "We are grateful to the Library of Congress for supporting our efforts to assure that these materials will be preserved and made available to future generations."

Serving its network of 349 member stations with quality programming and educational services, PBS is responsible for keeping copies of all the hundreds of national programs that are broadcast system-wide and will focus its efforts in the project on preservation of programs produced by smaller stations or independent producers who might not have the resources to plan for long-term preservation. "With the rapid advance of digital technologies, many of these programs are at-risk because they are in an ever-changing array of digital tape and file formats," said Wayne Godwin, executive vice president and chief operating officer at PBS. "The introduction of digital distribution, in which there are no physical master tapes or 'fixed' program versions, represents both an opportunity and a challenge for PBS and the Library of Congress. This project allows us to make real plans not only for long-term preservation, but also to set system-wide standards that take into account the rapid evolution we are facing in television technology itself."

The project is also benefiting from the special expertise of NYU, home to the Tisch School of the Arts which has recently launched an innovative and distinguished Masters Program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation. NYU is also a leading institution developing standards for digital library systems. "We are enthusiastic about lending our considerable expertise to facilitate standard-setting for public television's digital archives," said Dean of Libraries Carol Mandel. "We could not be more pleased than to be supporting the creation of such an important new facility."

"This collaboration is an example of the type of activity that Tisch envisioned when we set up a moving image preservation degree," added Tisch Dean Mary Schmidt Campbell. "Our department of Cinema Studies want this program to be in the forefront of solving the tough problems of saving moving image and multimedia materials - handling fragile contemporary material as well as fragile old material."

About Thirteen

Thirteen/WNET New York is one of the key program providers for public television, bringing such acclaimed series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, Charlie Rose, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, Wide Angle, Stage on Screen, Secrets of the Dead, and Cyberchase - as well as the work of Bill Moyers - to audiences nationwide. As the flagship public broadcaster in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut metro area, Thirteen reaches millions of viewers each week, airing the best of American public television along with its own local productions such as The Ethnic Heritage Specials, The Thirteen Walking Tours, New York Voices, and Reel New York. With educational and community outreach projects that extend the impact of its television productions, Thirteen takes television "out of the box." And as broadcast and digital media converge, Thirteen is blazing trails in the creation of Web sites, enhanced television, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, educational software, and other cutting-edge media products. More information about Thirteen can be found at: www.thirteen.org.

About WGBH

WGBH Boston is America's preeminent public broadcasting producer, the source of nearly one-third of PBS's prime-time lineup as well as many public radio favorites. WGBH-produced Web sites bring in fully 25% of the traffic at pbs.org, the most-visited dot-org on the Internet. WGBH is a pioneer in educational multimedia (including broadband and interactive television) and in technologies and services that make media accessible for people with disabilities. The Media Library and Archives (MLA) establishes the policies and procedures for the access, acquisition, intellectual control, and preservation of WGBH's physical and digital production and administrative assets. The MLA also offers production organization of archival materials for broadcast programs, projects and specialized program production research services. For more information visit www.wgbh.org.

About PBS

PBS is a private, nonprofit media enterprise that serves the nation's 349 public noncommercial television stations, reaching nearly 90 million people each week. Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and the Internet, PBS provides high-quality documentary and dramatic entertainment, and consistently dominates the most prestigious award competitions. PBS is the leading provider of educational materials for K-12 teachers, and offers a broad array of educational services for adult learners. PBS' premier kids' TV programming and Web site, PBS KIDS(R) Online (pbskids.org), continue to be parents' and teachers' most trusted learning environments for children. More information about PBS is available at pbs.org, the leading dot-org Web site on the Internet. PBS is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

About New York University

New York University is one of the largest private universities in the United States, with more than 3,100 full time faculty members, 48,000 students, programs in 14 schools and colleges, six major centers in Manhattan, and study abroad centers in over 20 countries. NYU is an active member of the Digital Library Federation, and NYU's Digital Library is engaged in the development and partnerships necessary to ensure that scholarly digital content will be available and readily useful for teaching, learning and research. NYU is also home to the renowned Tisch School of the Arts, a center for the study of film and television. Tisch has recently established its ground-breaking program in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation, a new Masters Degree program which is one of only two such programs in the United States. Launched in Fall 2003, this two-year course of study will train future professionals to manage preservation-level collections of film, video, new media, and other types of moving image works. http://library.nyu.edu/diglib/; MIAP http://www.nyu.edu/tisch/preservation/

About the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program

In December 2000, Congress authorized the Library of Congress to develop and execute a congressionally approved plan for a National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. The program aims to develop and implement strategies for long-term preservation of valuable archived materials. The complete text of the "Plan for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program" is available at www.digitalpreservation.gov.

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. Through its National Digital Library (NDL) Program, it is also one of the leading providers of noncommercial intellectual content on the Internet (www.loc.gov). The NDL Program's flagship American Memory project, in collaboration with other institutions nationwide, makes freely available more than 8.5 million American historical items.