Regional Media Legacies Partnerships with Historical Organizations
The RML project partners with organizations that manage audiovisual collections of their own, or work with smaller organizations or individuals in need of assistance with their own audiovisual collections. We will work with partners in three different potential capacities: 1. To assess and document audiovisual preservation needs, 2. As an internship host site, and 3. As a fellowship host site.
RML project activity is subject to the guidelines mandated by New York University. Current recommendations allow for the negotiation of onsite visits or work as long as safety protocols are in place to ensure the safety of both project staff and your staff.
If you are part of an organization with an audiovisual collection located in Brooklyn, Queens, or Long Island and are interested in contributing to our research please email RMLproject@nyu.edu. Once we hear from you, someone will reach out with more information. We will also ask that you separately fill out the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation's Collections Care Form.
For more information about the Regional Media Legacies project please email, RMLproject@nyu.edu.
Partners
Booklyn - Brooklyn, NY
Booklyn is an artist-run, non-profit 501 (c) (3), consensus-governed, artists and bookmakers organization that supports artists and organizations committed to environmental and social justice. They work towards this by documenting, exhibiting, promoting, and distributing their work within educational institutions worldwide.
Booklyn’s co-founder, Marshall Weber, possesses an audiovisual collection of his own which MIAP graduate student Amal Ahmed worked on this collection during her Spring 2020 internship. Find out more information here regarding her work.
Brooklyn Historical Society - Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS) hosted the first Regional Media Legacies project-funded MIAP intern, MIAP graduate Matthew Hoffman, during the Fall 2019 semester. BHS collected, preserved, and made accessible one of the most comprehensive collections of materials related to Brooklyn’s history and culture. Under the supervision of Manager of Archives and Special Collections, Maggie Schreiner, Hoffman researched and assisted with preparation for a grant application for the preservation of audio-visual material in the Ronald Shiffman collection on the Pratt Center for Community Development, which documents the broad scope of Shiffman's career as a city planner, architect, and expert in community economic development from the 1960s to the present.
In 2020, the BHS made an agreement to merge with the Brooklyn Public Library. As of October 2020, the organization is now part of Brooklyn Public Library and is known as the Center for Brooklyn History. Schreiner, now the Collections and Digital Access Manager at the Center, informed us in November of 2020 that Hoffman's research for and writing for a previous grant proposal was used for a successful grant application to digitize the audiovisual materials in the Ron Shiffman collection.
Brooklyn Museum - Brooklyn, NY
The Brooklyn Museum Archives offers world class research resources. The Archives contain the primary source documents that detail the history of the Museum and its predecessor institutions. The audiovisual collection numbers over 2,300 items and includes videos, audio tapes, and films that were predominantly created by the Brooklyn Museum from 1972 to 2005.
The bulk of the Audiovisual collection’s video series was inventoried and significant contributions were made by former MIAP Intern Draye Wilson. The information held in their audiovisual collection is unique and documents the Museum's history and programs that include under-documented cultures that are of value to a wide and varied audience. Content includes documentation of installations and lectures, public programming and symposia, interviews with artists and curators, research done in the field, television programs, and publicity materials.
In Fall 2020, under the supervision of Museum Archivist Molly Seegers, MIAP graduate student intern Zoe Yang assisted with increasing access to the audiovisual collection through tasks such as ingesting recently digitized materials, updating policies and procedures around ingest, and migrating and refining relevant metadata in object records.
Coney Island Museum - Brooklyn, NY
Founded in 1980, Coney Island USA “exists to defend the honor of American popular culture through innovative exhibitions and performances”. The Coney Island Museum is a part of Coney Island USA’s multi-arts center in a landmark building in the heart of Coney Island, NY. For over a century, the Coney Island amusement district has represented the changing face of American popular culture. A source of wonders, thrills, and larger-than-life spectacles for many generations, Coney Island has also been the site of a wide range of historical innovations, including the hot dog, the first escalator ride, and the introduction of the infant incubator as a tool for neonatal care.
The Coney Island Museum is the only accredited institution singularly dedicated to preserving, protecting, and interpreting the unique history of the People’s Playground. It houses the world’s premier collection of Coney Island photographs, paintings, ephemera, amusement-related objects, architectural elements, and vintage signs on view to the public. In addition to the permanent collection, the Museum also hosts special exhibitions and lectures on Coney Island’s history and impact. The Museum’s archives are available as a critical resource to researching scholars and its public displays support educators from local schools.
The RML project has worked with Lisa Mangels-Schaefer, Coney Island Museum Curator, to identify audiovisual archival materials and create an inventory in order to enable further preservation work. Mangels-Schaefer has done important work to upgrade the Museum’s preservation infrastructure, and the collaboration with RML serves to provide audiovisual-specific guidance in this endeavor.
Freeport Historical Society - Freeport, NY
Established in 1941, the purposes of the Freeport Historical Society are to promote and encourage historical research; to gather and disseminate information concerning the early history of Freeport in the State of New York; to gather, to obtain by purchase, gift, devise, or otherwise to preserve and to exhibit books, photographs, manuscripts, papers and relics relating to the history of Freeport and contiguous territory; and to preserve records of the recollections of residents of the area concerning its early history. The society possesses oral histories on compact audio cassettes that feature Freeport residents from the 1970s-1980s as well as some Freeport band recordings.
In July 2021, Fellow Robert Anen was able to complete an item level inventory and inspection of the Society’s audio materials. The inventory process helped organize these 40 compact audio cassettes, and they are now prepared for potential digitization in the future.
Hallockville Museum Farm - Riverhead, NY
Hallockville Museum Farm is a not-for-profit (501 (c)3) organization dedicated to taking Long Island back to its family farming roots and exploring their relevance today. Hallockville is not a state, county or town facility, and is supported through membership contributions, charitable donations, grant funding from Suffolk County Office of Cultural Affairs and the New York Council for the Humanities, to name a few, and corporate sponsorship. Hallockville Museum Farm is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Riverhead Town Landmark.
The Museum holds a collection of oral histories on compact audio cassettes. These materials are interviews with Hallock family members born in the late 19th century who speak about life on the Hallock family farm, and were conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The RML project assisted the Museum in preparing materials for grant applications in earl 2021. RML Fellow Robert Anen retrieved 24 compact audio cassettes from the Museum, and prepped the materials for digitization by inspecting for damage, replacing pressure pads if needed, and repairing tapes when necessary. He was able to digitize the first 12 tapes using the RML audio kit. MIAP student intern Esther Rosenfield inventoried, inspected, and digitized the remaining 12 tapes over the course of her summer internship with the RML project.
L.O.V.E. (Lesbians Organized for Video Experience) - Brooklyn, NY
L.O.V.E. (Lesbians Organized for Video Experience) was founded in 1972. L.O.V.E. came out of the Lesbian Feminist Liberation (LFL) group which had split off from the Gay Activist Alliance in 1972. The original members of the collective were Betty Brown, Delia Davis, Tracy Fitz, Barbara Jabaily, Doris (Blue) Lunden, and Denise Wong. The group learned how to shoot and edit with the help of Susan Milano and Rochelle Schulman, the Downtown Community Video Center, Public Access Center, and Women’s Interart Center. The collective worked together in various crew configurations, shooting and editing about 70 half-hour black and white 1/2 inch open reel video tapes using the revolutionary technology of the Sony Portapak. Between 1972-1977 L.O.V.E. members documented lesbian feminist protests and events, particularly in and around New York City.
The L.O.V.E. archive is digitized and available for research at the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) as well as being accessible on YouTube and Vimeo, but there is a great deal of cataloging and access work to be done to open up more of the collection. RML Fellow Claire Fox assisted L.O.V.E. member Tracy Fitz by assessing and improving their digital preservation practices for digitized transfers of tapes, and is collaborating with LHA volunteers on a screening in an effort to identify individuals appearing in the recordings.
Long Beach Historical & Preservation Society - Long Beach, NY
The Long Beach Historical and Preservation Society was founded in 1980 with a mission to educate the public about Long Beach and to preserve and enhance the city’s architectural and historical heritage. The Society is a not for profit all-volunteer organization, and is governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees. Trustees are directly involved in all aspects of the daily operations of the Society including maintenance of the museum property. In pursuit of its mission, the Society serves as the guardian of thousands of pieces of Long Beach history for which it maintains an archive and repository. The archived documents, pictures, artifacts and memorabilia are made available to the public through themed exhibitions, as well as for research purposes.
They currently hold a collection of oral histories from the early 1980s on compact audio cassettes. The RML fellows retrieved 20 compact audio cassettes from the Society. MIAP student intern Esther Rosenfield inventoried, inspected, and digitized 5 of the tapes as part of her summer internship with the RML project. RML Fellow Robert Anen completed the inventory, inspection, and digitization of the remaining 15 tapes using the RML audio kit.
Long Island Studies Institute / Special Collections, Hofstra University - Hempstead, NY
A cooperative endeavor of Hofstra University and Nassau County, Long Island Studies Institute (LISI) is a major center for the study of Long Island local and regional history, and has unprocessed audiovisual material documenting unique aspects of this history.
In the Fall of 2019, LISI became the first RML Fellow host site. By partnering with LISI, the RML project gained a site to support Fellowship work across the Long Island region. The early stage of this partnership established groundwork for LISI’s long-term audiovisual preservation goals, and assisted the RML project in building a network of local cultural organizations with hidden media collections.
Adjusting to restrictions imposed by the ongoing pandemic in 2020, partner work with LISI through 2021 refocused to a collections assessment report on the media holdings of the Special Collections department of Hofstra University as a whole. Led by RML Fellow Robert Anen, with support from RML Fellow Claire Fox and Project Manager Marie Lascu, the goal of the broader report was to document the current state of a/v collections and recommend next steps to assist with calling attention to and restarting preservation efforts. Anen continued to work with the Special Collections department until the end of his term in August 2021 to assist with foundational intellectual control processes, and to advocate for the investment in continued long term care of Hofstra University’s archival collections.
Los Herederos - Queens, NY
Los Herederos (The Inheritors) is a media arts non-profit organization dedicated to inheriting culture in the digital age. They engage in research-based documentation for public consumption to produce projects, programs, and services that address the realities of local culture, evolving communities, and an increasingly diasporadical immigrant experience. They believe in the power and complexity of transmedia storytelling to educate and encourage a more culturally aware, equitable, and sustainable society.
In Spring 2021, under the supervision of Executive Director Naomi Sturm-Wijesinghe, MIAP graduate student intern Kayla Henry-Griffin worked on Urban Condors: Andean Music in NYC (1970 - Present), a mixed-media collection compiled by ethnomusicologist and folklorist Sturm-Wijesinghe, based on her 15+ years of fieldwork and programming with Andean communities across the NYC metropolitan area (includes Long Island, Westchester and Rockland counties). Urban Condors contains materials relating to Andean music performance, artist interviews, and community-based activities spanning five decades in NYC.
LTV (Local Television) Archive - Wainscott, NY
The LTV (Local Television) Archive’s mission has been to offer the public an outlet to broadcast the activities of their communities for over thirty-five years. In that time, LTV has amassed thousands of hours of regional content that is in need of preservation. RML has partnered with LTV to assist them in ensuring that their audiovisual assets will be taken care of properly into the future.
RML Fellow Claire Fox completed a collections assessment report in December 2020, a major step in providing documentation of the current state of LTV’s audiovisual collections. Fox utilized the information in the report to assist with furthering foundational preservation work for LTV’s audiovisual assets, and assisted the organization in working toward long-term workable solutions.
During the summer of 2021, MIAP Intern Ben Rubin assessed, inventoried, and began digitizing a selection of VHS tapes from LTV’s collections. Fox also continued to work with LTV by extracting digitized transfers of tapes that had previously been stored on DVDs in an effort to prepare these files for long-term preservation.
Mineola Historical Society - Mineola, NY
The Mineola Historical Society is dedicated to preserving the history of Mineola, New York. Since 1988, the society has been collecting objects that help tell the story of Mineola. The society possesses an audiovisual collection, mainly of home movies, that show the town throughout the 1930s and into the 1970s.
RML Fellow Robert Anen has inventoried and inspected the society’s film collection, which consists of 34 films of every major film gauge of the 20th century: 16mm, 8mm, Super 8, and even some 35mm film. The contents of the films range from home movies to an amateur film of Mineola’s 1952 Fair and movie theater announcements from 1936. Through the RML project, we have digitized three films from this collection, and the society is eager to share them with Mineola residents.
Queens Museum - Queens, NY
The Queens Museum opened in 1972 in Flushing Meadows Park, Corona, Queens. The site originally served as the New York City Pavilion for the 1939/1940 World’s Fair, and was one of few buildings that stood when the Fair concluded. Between 1946 and 1950, the building served as the temporary site for the United Nations. In 1964, the building was used again as the New York City Pavilion for the World’s Fair. The Panorama of the City of New York – a 1:1200 scale model of all five boroughs – was created for the Fair and remains a steadfast landmark at the Museum. Between 1965 and 1972, the building was an ice skating rink and a roller rink. The roller rink was removed in 1972 to make space for the Queens Museum; the ice skating rink disappeared after the Museum’s most recent renovation between 2009 and 2013.
The collection at the Queens Museum consists of over 10,000 objects related to the two World’s Fairs held at the site (the only two ever held in New York), including film and video. Each World’s Fair served as an international exposition that invited countries from around the world to share accomplishments and culture, and industrial leaders to share new technologies and projections. In Spring 2021, under the supervision of Archives and Collection Manager Lynn Maliszewski, MIAP graduate student intern Ana Salas worked on assessing and cataloging the Museum's audiovisual collection. In Fall 2021, MIAP graduate student intern Kirk Mudle will continue work with the Museum’s audiovisual collection.
R.C. Diocese of Brooklyn Archives - Brooklyn, NY
The Diocese of Brooklyn was created in 1853 in response to the growing numbers of primarily Irish and German Catholic immigrants into what was then part of the Archdiocese of New York. The diocese was named for the then City of Brooklyn, where the new bishop had his cathedral, which then encompassed all Long Island. This included the North and South Forks, where a Catholic mission existed at Sag Harbor. By the time Bishop Charles E. McDonnell became the second Bishop of Brooklyn, the city included not only English and German speaking parishes, but also a network of Polish, Lithuanian, and Italian parishes, as well as single parishes for Scandinavian, Slovak, French, Puerto Rican, and African American Catholics. After the death of the third Bishop of Brooklyn, and due to the post-WWII population growth in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, the diocese was split in two. The Suffolk County Diocese formed into the new Diocese of Rockville Centre, while Brooklyn and Queens remained known as the Brooklyn Diocese. Even with the division, the Brooklyn Diocese remains one of the largest in the United States.
The R.C. Diocese of Brooklyn Archives was created in 1977 with the appointment of the first full-time archivist, Rev. Harry Culkin. The Archives identifies, collects, preserves, and makes available historically valuable institutional records of the Diocese. It also includes the records of related organizations such as the Roman Catholic Orphan Society, The Emerald Association of Long Island, personal papers and oral histories of priests. The Diocesan Archives has custody of several collections of audiovisual material. In Spring 2021, under the supervision of Archivist Joseph Coen, MIAP graduate student intern Lindsay Miller assisted the archive in gaining more specific understanding of the audiovisual materials within their collection by beginning item level inventories for several collections, and generating a collections assessment report which includes short term and long term recommendations for the archive. In Fall 2021, MIAP graduate student intern Alyosha Nowlin will continue work with the Diocese Archives audiovisual collection.
Railroad Museum of Long Island - Riverhead, NY
Founded in 1990, the Railroad Museum of Long Island (RMLI) is dedicated to the restoration, preservation and interpretation of the history and artifacts pertaining to the railroads which participated in the growth of Long Island, its communities and industries for the entertainment, edification, and good of present and future generations. The Museum maintains facilities at Greenport, L.I., N.Y. and Riverhead, L.I., N.Y., and serves primarily the communities of Suffolk County.
The RMLI established itself at Greenport in the historic 1892 freight house of the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). The approximately 3.4 acres that make up “the yard,” including the passenger station, railroad dock, turntable and the Museum, appear on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places.
RMLI currently holds two primary audiovisual collections. Each of these collections are “Physical Characteristics” tapes, which document every track that makes up the LIRR and were used as training aids for train conductors. One collection of tapes was created on VHS and reformatted to DVD, and another was created on Betacam SP. RML Fellow Claire Fox transferred the files from DVDs to an external hard drive to prepare them for long-term preservation. Fox also inventoried a new donation of 20 “Physical Characteristics” Betacam SP tapes in June 2021. In addition, from August to October 2021, Fox coordinated the reformatting of RMLI’s collection of six 35mm tax valuation films; these were reformatted by BB Optics (New York, NY) in partnership with Colorlab (Rockville, MD), with funding through the RML project.
Sea Cliff Village Museum - Sea Cliff, NY
The Sea Cliff Village Museum (SCVM) strives to raise community awareness by preserving artifacts, documents, photographs and costumes relating to the unique historical background of the village. In 1871 a Methodist organization purchased land in Long Island as a retreat for Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens families. During summertime revival meetings they would live in rented tents and attend services at the 500-seat Tabernacle. By the turn of the century Sea Cliff was a major East Coast resort, with vacationers arriving by steamboat and train. Then, as the automobile became more popular, people traveled farther for their vacations. But the village remained and today many late 19th century Victorian houses survive to give Sea Cliff its special character. One of the buildings now houses the Museum, which maintains permanent displays and mounts two special exhibitions per year.
RML Fellow Robert Anen inventoried almost all of the Museum’s film, video, and audio materials, and completed full inspections and rehousing of all films. Twenty-three oral histories - 22 on compact audio cassette and 1 on 1/4” open reel audio tape - were inventoried and digitized. Four additional 1/4” open reel audio tapes and 4 VHS video tapes were inventoried. Forty-eight home movies - 44 on 16mm film and 4 on 8mm film - were inventoried, fully inspected using the RML film kit, and rehoused on archival cores in archival cans. Two films from the collections were selected for digitization with qualified vendors using funds from the RML project.
Some of the films are dated 1925, and could possibly be some of the oldest home movies on Long Island. Featured in the collection are two different families: the Willetts and the Scholes. The Willett films are dated 1925-1930 and depict family activities, often at their Roslyn home which is now the Shibley Day Camp. More can be learned about the Willetts films in Anen’s RML blog post here. The Scholes films are dated 1945-1958 and were shot by Bert Scholes of Sea Cliff, depicting his life with longtime girlfriend, Rose Tuboni, whom Scholes later left his house to when he died in 1974.
Shelter Island Historical Society - Bay Shore, NY
The Shelter Island Historical Society interprets Shelter Island’s past through historical material and through its people, from the first Native American inhabitants, settlers and town fathers, to those who have made it a caring and unique community through the years. The Society strives to preserve the Island’s heritage for future generations.
The Society supports local historical research on properties, family members, or certain periods of time on Shelter Island. They have over 100,000 maps, deeds, diaries, letters, photos and other historical documents as well as artifacts such as artwork, furniture, tools, textiles, vehicles, and housewares spanning the 17th through 21st centuries. They currently hold a collection of oral histories and interviews on compact audio cassettes that were created in the 1970s-1980s.
RML Fellow Robert Anen completed inventory, full inspection, and rehousing work on the society’s film collection - 47 films (46 on 16mm film and 1 on 8mm film) - using the RML film kit. The collection, which had never been examined before, contains historic sites and events of Shelter Island and select locations of Suffolk County from 1925-1964. Twenty VHS video tapes were inventoried by Fellow Claire Fox, and 20 compact audio cassette tapes were inventoried by Anen. All 20 audio tapes were digitized using the RML audio kit. This work was led by Anen, with MIAP intern Esther Rosenfield able to digitize a small portion during her RML summer internship.
Straus Historical Society - Smithtown, NY
The Straus Historical Society fosters educational activities with respect to the settlement of Jews in the United States and, in particular, the family of Lazarus and Sara Straus, their ancestors and their descendants. The focus of the Society's activities on the Straus Family is based on the family's involvement in government, commerce, and philanthropy. The history of the Straus family is part of world history. It is written for the present. It provokes discussion, imagination and creation. It ties the present with the past and draws pathways to the future.
The Society’s collections are stewarded by Executive Director Joan Adler. The audiovisual collection consists of home movies of the Straus family on 16mm film and VHS video tape, and oral histories on compact audio cassettes. Over the summer in 2021, RML Fellow Robert Anen inventoried and digitized 14 compact audio cassettes and 6 micro audio cassettes utilizing the RML audio kit. RML Fellow Claire Fox inventoried 14 VHS video tapes, and generated digital storage estimates for the Society
The Standby Program - Glen Head, NY
The Standby Program, Inc. is a non-profit media arts service organization founded in 1983. Standby’s mission is to foster the creation and preservation of media artwork by democratizing access to media technology, providing technical consultation, and creating resources to advance the development of the field.
The Standby Program partnered with the RML project to host RML Fellow Claire Fox for preliminary preservation work on a video collection from the media department of New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). The collection consists of 3/4" U-matic videotapes from the 1980s containing local news coverage of Long Island. Bill Seery, Director of Preservation Services, supervises work on the collection. Seery also partnered with Fox on the RML webinar hosted December 7, 2020, titled "Conversation with a Conservator: Knowing your collections and preparing for digitization," available on view on our Events page.
Weeksville Heritage Center - Brooklyn, NY
Weeksville Heritage Center is the steward of a 19th century African American historic site located in Brooklyn. In addition to three historic houses with period furnishings interpreted for the general public, the Weeksville Heritage Center’s collections include oral histories, unprocessed institutional records, archaeological artifacts, objects chosen for interpretive purposes, family papers of Weeksville descendents, and research files that compile primary source materials that document historic Weeksville and other free Black communities.
In Spring 2020, MIAP graduate student Madeleine Mendell focused on surveying, documenting, and assessing legacy audiovisual formats and previously digitized materials in Weeksville’s processed and unprocessed collections. Find out more information here regarding their work.