Request for Proposals
The purpose of this Request for Proposals is to solicit proposals to be the Initiative Manager of the American Archive Pilot Program. The Initiative Manager, working in close consultation with CPB, will coordinate and support the development, execution, and evaluation of grants to public television and radio stations for the collection, coding, digitization, and possible restoration of existing content.
This project will be designed to develop solid understandings of the systematized processes needed to restore, digitize, and preserve Public Broadcasting's deteriorating collections of local TV and Radio content. While serious archiving initiatives are taking place in Public Broadcasting, they are fragmented and lack common technical, process and archival approaches. The Initiative Manager will manage an RFP process and select a group of stations in consultation with CPB to digitize collections of content, supervise and coordinate the process and report outcomes to CPB.
The equally important processes of distributing the collections once they are preserved will be addressed by a subsequent initiative, but the end goal of both preserving and distributing should be borne in mind throughout this project.