Online Access to the Histories of Cinema, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound

The Media History Digital Library exists to digitize classic media-related print materials in the public domain. The history of American cinema, broadcasting and recorded sound can be found in the trade magazines and other journals, and this project seeks to make those materials widely available for free. We connect contributors who loan materials from their collections, and generous sponsors who fund the digitization. This is a volunteer-led, non-profit activity.

You can help us place materials online by providing financial support for the digitization of magazines and books. We accept donations of all sizes through PayPal to our General Fund, which goes toward the expenses of digitization, shipping, and web hosting.

You may sponsor the digitization of particular journal titles and collections through contributions of $1,000 or more. Your name will be credited at the beginning of each scanned volume, and we work with you to select the journal titles that you wish to sponsor. Your $1,000 contribution will support the scanning of 10,000 magazine pages. A $10,000 contribution will pay to scan a decade or more of most publications.

For those at educational institutions or libraries who want to support this work, we can custom scan journals in response to a purchase order and deliver the raw files to your institution, while they are also available online. In effect, you are commissioning the scanning, and acquiring a set of the files.

We estimate that there are at least five million pages of material within our scope. So far we have scanned nearly 20 years each of two major film publications, industry journal The Film Daily, and fan magazine Photoplay along with dozens of volumes of other publications, to show the breadth of content that was published. With the support of Rick Prelinger we are also able to offer access to long runs of Radio Age, Radio Broadcast, Business Screen, The Educational Screen, and Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers.

Among the titles available for sponsorship:

The Film Daily – all issues from 1936 through 1963 of this important trade magazine
Motion Picture Daily – this Quigley publication provided details on production and exhibition
Motion Picture Herald - supporting the small town exhibitor, with extensive local coverage for a national magazine
Radio Daily – the Radio equivalent of the Film Daily, with comprehensive coverage of the industry
Cine-Mundial- The Spanish-language film industry trade publication
Broadcasting – issues from the 1930s cover the development of radio as a commercial medium with nationwide reach
Exhibitors Trade Review – the film industry as seen by theater owners and their audiences
Motion Picture News – the best trade publication of the 1920s
Moving Picture World – we would like to fill the gaps in our collection, especially the early years
The Hollywood Reporter – lively coverage from the heart of the industry in Los Angeles
Several publications from the Magic Lantern era that also cover early cinema
Amateur film publications, including Movie Makers
Film Daily Year Books – 1923 through 1962
International Motion Picture Almanac – 1930 through 1963. About 1,000 pages each
Hollywood Reporter Production Encyclopedia – more volumes from the 1940s
Misc. 16mm nontheatrical catalogs from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s
Non-English language publications that speak to the media marketplace and cultural influence of films and broadcasting abroad

If you would like to sponsor a journal title, or learn more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact us at mediahist@gmail.com.

Note for sponsors of $1,000 or greater: the entirety of your contributions go to the Internet Archive, a 501c3 non-profit, and are applied to scanning of materials we send to their scanning centers. Your contribution to the Internet Archive will be tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. If you wish to contribute, we will provide you with a letter to accompany your check to the Internet Archive, and you will receive a letter from them which serves as a receipt for tax purposes.