Our entire collection originated on actual physical videotapes. Before a video can be seen online, one of our staff needs to play the videotape, physically care for it, and transfer it to digital files for preservation and streaming. This entire process takes a few hours for each hour of videotape, and can take much, much longer when a tape is highly deteriorated and in need of extensive conservation work.
Digitizing our collection is our full time job. Our focus at any given time is on the videotapes in our collection deemed most at danger of deterioration and loss. We typically plan about 2-3 years worth of digitizing ahead of time.
However, we also want our audience to get to see the videos that interest them. We make our records from our entire collection of videos available to the public on our website–both digitized and non-digitized tapes–so that people have access to as much information about our collection as possible.
If you come across a video that you want to be able to see and get the message, “This video is not yet digitized,” email us to let us know you’re interested in watching it, and we’ll see if we’re able to make it available online it sooner.