I’ve been excited to bring you today’s site for weeks now! We had a speaker come into our Archives class to talk about this project. It is important for us to consider for two reasons: 1) it functions as a digital archive 2) it preserves media from classic films that are important cultural touchstones.
The content you’ll find in the database ranges from the early 1900’s up until the 1960s, largely in part because they are clear of any copyright holders and have entered public domain. The collection houses periodicals, books, annals, catalogs, posters and flyers.
There are several ways to search the database too! You can use the search field at the top of the page to keyword search. For example, type in Cary Grant, then click search. The site house over 165,000 records that relate to Cary Grant. It’s an amazing collection of items! Another way to search is to click Advanced Search Options beneath the search field which allows you to search more than one keyword at a time, and adds searching by Author, Title, Subject, and even metadata. You can also use the search limiters on the left side of the page to narrow your results down by date, title, collection, format, and language.
What I love is that this database has fan magazines! It’s always interesting to see how they treat subject matter as opposed to main publications.
Go explore the amazing Media History Digital Library today!
~Amanda