Library of Congress to Digitize PBS NewsHour Collection

WASHINGTON—If you’ve missed out on the past 30 years of PBS NewsHour you’re in luck, 32 years of broadcasts will be persevered and available online through the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. The Library of Congress, public media producer WGBH and WETA, Washington D.C., will handle the digitization of PBS NewsHour programs from 1975 to 2007. Funding for the endeavor is coming from the Council on Library and Information Resources.

The project will digitize around 10,000 programs with more than 8,000 hours of interviews and reports on major American and foreign affair issues and events. Interviews feature every secretary of state since 1976, presidents, supreme court justices and members of congress, as well as a number of world leaders. The collection will also include coverage of election campaigns, African-American history, end of the Cold War, terrorism and other national issues.

With the addition of the PBS NewsHour collection, the AAPB website will have more than 20,000 programs as part of its online collection. The AAPB is a collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress.