WGBH on behalf of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting is pleased to introduce our first cohort of fellows for the Public Broadcasting Preservation Fellowship (PBPF), a project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The PBPF supports students enrolled in non-specialized graduate programs to pursue digital preservation projects at public broadcasting organizations around the country. The Fellowship is designed to provide graduate students with the opportunity to gain hands-on experiences in the practices of audiovisual preservation; address the need for digitization of at-risk public media materials in underserved areas; and increase audiovisual preservation education capacity in Library and Information Science graduate programs around the country.

Over the spring semester of this year, each fellow will inventory, digitize, and catalog a small collection of audiovisual media; generate technical and preservation metadata; and process the digital files for ingest into the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The fellows will collaborate with a faculty advisor at their university to document their work in a 3-5 page handbook and video demo. The fellowship will also support a digitization station at each university for the use by the fellows and future students enrolled at the universities.

Please welcome the members of our Spring 2018 PBPF cohort:

Fellow: Virginia Angles
Program: Clayton State University
Host Organization: Georgia Public Broadcasting
Host Mentor: Tanya Ott, Vice President of Radio and News Content, Georgia Public Broadcasting
Faculty Advisor: Josh Kitchens, Director, Master of Archival Studies Program
Local Mentor: Kathy Christensen, former VP of News, Archives and Research at CNN

Virginia Angles is an aspiring archivist with a background in Art History and Chemistry. She is currently pursuing a second masters in Archival Studies with a focus in digital preservation.

Fellow: Rebecca Benson
Program: University of Missouri
Host Organization: KOPN Community Radio
Host Mentor: Jacqueline Casteel, KOPN Community Radio
Faculty Advisor: Sarah Buchanan, Assistant Professor, Library and Information Science
Local Mentor: James Hone, Digital Archivist, University Libraries, Washington University in St. Louis

Rebecca Benson is a graduate student in the Library and Information Science Program at the University of Missouri, where she works in the Special Collections and Rare Books department of Ellis Library. Her research interests include digital communities, story-telling and reception, and the preservation of ephemeral narratives.

Fellow: Evelyn Cox
Program: University of Oklahoma
Host Organization: Oklahoma Educational Television Authority
Host Mentor: Janette Thornbrue, Vice President of Operations, Oklahoma Educational Television Authority
Faculty Advisor: Susan Burke, Interim Director and Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Studies
Local Mentor: Lisa Henry, Curator/Archivist, Political Communication Center, Julian P. Kantor Political Commercial Archive

Evelyn Cox is a graduate student enrolled in the Masters of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) Program at the University of Oklahoma.  She obtained her undergraduate degree in English from the University of California, Los Angeles and is a wife and mother of two. She was born on the beautiful island of Guam but currently resides in Oklahoma. Evelyn has been a public school English teacher for over seventeen years. She has earned her National Board Certification in English Language Arts, has been a Great Expectations Instructor, has coached track and field, and has served on multiple grant writing and curriculum development teams. Upon graduation of the MLIS Program, Evelyn seeks to pursue a career in archives where she can combine her love of literature, history, and culture. Through archiving, she plans to take an active role in documenting and preserving history that adds to the cultural identity and awareness of the Chamorro people of Guam.

Fellow: Dena Schulze
Program: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Host Organization: WUNC
Host Mentor: Keith Weston, Web Producer and Back Porch Music Host, WUNC
Faculty Advisor: Helen Tibbo, Alumni Distinguished Professor, SILS
Local Mentor: Erica Titkemeyer, Project Director/AV Conservator, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dena Schulze  is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Library Science with a concentration in archives and records management. She graduated from North Carolina State University with a bachelor’s in English. She is a major movie buff and that’s what got her started on the road to a/v archiving and preservation. Dena’s dream would be to work in a film archive when she graduates. When she is not working, reading, or watching movies, she is playing with her new puppy, Bodhi who just turned six months old! Dena is very excited about this opportunity and being a part of saving audiovisual material for future generations.

Fellow: Tanya Yule
Program: San Jose State University
Host Organization: Center for Asian American Media in collaboration with the Bay Area Video Coalition
Host Mentor: James Ott, Director of Finance and Administration, Center for Asian-American Media
Faculty Advisor: Alyce Scott, Lecturer, School of Information
Local Mentor: Jackie Jay, Preservation Technician, Bay Area Video Coalition

Tanya Yule is a current MLIS candidate at San José State University, focusing on archives and photography preservation; she received her BFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, with a background in traditional darkroom methods, and photomechanical printing. Tanya is an intern at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University, and resides in San Francisco with her husband and adorable dog Otto.