Project

Globalizing and Enhancing the Media History Digital Library

Program

ACLS Digital Extension Grants

Department

Communication Arts

Abstract

The Media History Digital Library (MHDL, http://mediahistoryproject.org) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is a free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. To better serve researchers, the MHDL is developing a new platform that supports granular metadata, user contributions, and linked data with the AFI Catalog. This project also is expanding the MHDL’s international scope through the work of the Global Cinema History Task Force, a group of film historians who are investigating the locations and copyright statuses of significant global film publications and digitizing them when possible. The inclusion of more Spanish-language movie magazines is one of the project’s top priorities. To achieve this goal, the MHDL will be collaborating and hosting workshops with the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Latino/a Caucus and the University of Houston’s Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage project.