Eagan Television Video Collections Archiving and Preservation Planning
To hire a qualified consultant to conduct a needs assessment and write a digitization plan for Eagan Television's analog video collections.
$4,500,000 the first year and $6,500,000 the second year are for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources. Funds are to be distributed through a competitive grant process. The Minnesota Historical Society must administer these funds using established grant mechanisms, with assistance from the advisory committee created under Laws 2009, chapter 172, article 4, section 2, subdivision 4, paragraph (b), item (ii).
Available upon request. grants@mnhs.org
We achieved our goals and objectives and adjusted our timeline for future grant submissions.
1. We completed an overall asset survey to determine the size and content of the collection (See Report Attachment 15, Asset inventory results.)
?18 tapes: 3/4-inch U-matic tapes from the 1990s with TV programs on them.
?349 VHS/SVHS tapes with TV programs on them, going back to 1985.
?1,554 digital (DV) tapes with raw video, news stories, and full-length TV programs from the early 2000s.
?4,202 DVD-R discs, 4.7 GB format, whose content includes multiple, full-length TV shows in a series on single discs; compilations of news stories; and public meetings, community events, and high school activities, which often span two discs. The DVDs go back to 2003.
?13+ TB of video on portable hard drives, which needs metadata harvest and to be moved and stored on the EditShare archive.
?30+ TB of current video is now on our EditShare digital file server and content management system. EditShare has just 72TB of storage, which likely will not be enough to store our entire collection. Meanwhile, video is being shot at higher resolution 4K, which creates much larger data files. We must determine our options for additional storage, and backup.
The sheer number of assets causes us to re-assess how many we could complete in the visual inventory step during this grant period. One recommendation would be to enlist more volunteers in this process.
2. We completed the research and creation of a catalog process, custom metadata plan, and testing of inventory step?s collaborative data entry tools. This initial inventory process will enable our support of the project outcomes of archiving, preservation, and metadata generation, all leading to the creation of a finding aid and eventual digital conversion of the assets, providing a path for similar organizations to follow.
3. Due to the source material?s fragility, we determined public access to the material will be available only after we digitize the content. Using an external vendor will be the most cost-effective, timely, and reliable strategy for this conversion.
4. We determined how to integrate our catalog records and metadata from our legacy Access database content into our current media asset management systems (EditShare).
5. We confirmed our user audiences and communities, which includes Dakota County Libraries and connected libraries, as well as the historical societies for Burnsville, Eagan, Dakota County, and the state.
6. We created an archive and collections management policy. (See Attachment 21, Collections and Archival Management Policy.)
Available upon request, grants@mnhs.org