Reviving historic media with OSU's digitization team
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Unit lead Tim Lanza and Ohio State's audiovisual preservation and digitization unit restore forgotten media from the university's archives. Photo: Andrew King/Axios
There are millions of books in Ohio State's library system, but countless outdated media gems buried deep in the archives require the help of preservationists to return them to life.
Why it matters: Thousands of historic audiovisual items are kept at OSU, especially its special collections — and without digitization, these items largely sit unused and forgotten.
- "Unlike a book you can pull off the shelf, these items need to be in a format you can see," associate director of digitization Amy McCrory tells Axios.
Driving the news: This week, OSU hosts the 12th annual edition of Cinema Revival, a film festival celebrating the restoration work and bringing historic films to the big screen.
By the numbers: A 2020 assessment of OSU's special collections estimated they contained at least 15,000 reels of 16mm film, 10,000 CDs, 10,000 compact cassettes, 10,000 phonographs and more than 20,000 pieces of media in other formats.
Flashback: For years, OSU students and researchers outsourced digitization for their projects to specialist vendors who cost money and took weeks to process.
- In 2022, McCrory was given access to new funding to create "a new era for this department."
State of play: The new audiovisual preservation and digitization unit opened in 2023 and can now digitize everything from CDs and cassettes to more obscure open reel audio and U-matic tapes.
- They're still working on 16mm film and phonograph capabilities, both requiring expensive and specialized equipment.
- The team works on requests from students and staff (free of charge), combs through the archives and completes special projects sought by outside researchers.
Case in point: The digitization team recently helped writer Carla Kaplan listen to more than 150 audio cassettes for a biography about mid-1900s author and activist Jessica Mitford.
- Along the way, they've uncovered archival media about influential mime Marcel Marceau and Columbus folk artist Elijah Pierce.
Cinema Revival showcases archival footage
The general public won't see much of the work done by the audiovisual preservation and digitization unit, but the annual Cinema Revival festival at the Wexner Center for the Arts allows this archival footage to shine.
What's inside: The lineup includes work spanning nearly a century, including:
- 3D movie "Money from Home," featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
- One of Japanese director Mamoru Oshii's early live-action films.
- A collection of French shorts from the earliest days of video.
- Plus a new 70mm print of Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
What we're watching: The preservation team also put together a 75-minute spotlight that showcases some of its favorite items.
- Unit lead Tim Lanza's favorite is a collection of clips from "Porgy and Bess in Wien," a 1953 short film created as a counter to Soviet propaganda criticizing race relations in the U.S.
- Specialist Sarah Hartzell loved digitizing kinescopes of the 1950s WOSU show "The German Hour," which taught the language through sketch comedy and made her laugh "like a sitcom."
🎟️ If you go: Showings run from Feb. 26 to March 2.
- Festival passes start at $15 for students and are $42 for the general public.