Bay Area Television Archive

The Bay Area Television Archive, which was first established in 1982, is an archives housing a wide variety of television footage from the 20th century that is relevant to the Bay Area and Northern California. This archives is located in the Department of Special Collections at San Francisco State University’s J. Paul Leonard Library. The archives’ collection includes 6000 hours of newsfilm, along with documentaries and other television footage. The collection includes a total of 2,436 items, and their materials have been viewed over 7 million times. Additionally, the institution manages related archival materials from local television stations, including KPIX-TV, KRON-TV, KQED, and KTVU.1

In order to understand the purpose of the Bay Area Television Archive, it is important to first have a general understanding of the history of television as a medium and its relevance in our lives over time. Television as a medium, although relatively new in relation to print media, has a really rich history. Dr. Laurie Ouellette, a professor in the Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, divides the history of this medium into three main categories: mass television, niche television, and post television. Mass television, which took place from the 1940s to the 1970s, refers to the period during which watching television was a daily custom in most households, despite the fact that options for television programming and distributors were quite limited. From the 1970s to the 1990s, niche television evolved as a response to the previously mentioned limitations in programming options. Because there were so few television shows available during the mass television era, these shows were relatively generic and were targeted towards a broad audience. During the niche television period, however, more and more television content became available and as a result was more individualized, reaching out to groups and communities that were not marketed towards previously. Finally, from the 2000s through the current era, we are experiencing the post television phase. While this period has not yet been extensively studied because we are living through it right now, the current trend is that television as we have always known it is being transformed as programming options become increasingly flexible. Traditional television models no longer suit the needs of today’s viewers. Technological advancements and the prevalence of smart devices have led to individuals expecting access to any type of programming any time that they want it from any location where they want to watch. Sitting down and waiting for your favorite show to come on is just not the reality for most individuals anymore.

Because television as a medium is such a significant part of our culture and reflects so many of our values and principles, it is crucially important that this medium be preserved in archives, as it provides an opportunity for us to better our understandings of ourselves. Despite its historical and cultural significance, television is a particularly challenging medium for archivists to preserve. There are a number of specific issues that present themselves when archivists are working with television materials, whether they are analog or digital. For example, indexing and cataloging present a unique challenge for archivists, particularly when it comes to indexing and cataloging electronic news coverage, as there is no existing standard for these materials. Additionally, allowing for access to television materials in an archive is also a difficult terrain to navigate, specifically when it involves allowing access to original copies of materials in their analog format. This runs the risk of damaging the materials, showing the difficult balance archivists need to find between preservation and access. Finally, as with any other medium representing shifting technological advancements, the technology needed to preserve and maintain these materials can be a real problem for archivists, particularly because this technology is always changing. While preserving in a digital format can be a good solution to access and preservation in the short-term, it can be dangerous to rely on this format as a long-term solution, because it is difficult to know when individual digital formats will become obsolete. Despite all of these complicated issues, archives staff at institutions like the Bay Area Television Archive tackle these challenges head on in order to allow these materials to be useful for as many people as possible. 

Part of the reason that television news archives like the Bay Area Television Archive are so important is because they allow archives users to interact with parts of history that may not have been well-documented in common educational spaces like classrooms or museums. Television is a relatively new medium for dispelling information, and because of that, it is a really rich resource for individuals hoping to learn more about recent historical events from individuals experiencing them as they happened. In terms of providing access to firsthand information about events in recent history, television news archives like the Bay Area Television Archive particularly excel when it comes to representing events relevant to marginalized communities. The Bay Area Television Archive’s collections includes materials related to a number of different diverse community members, including television materials that center around BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals. Collections like those related to the Black Panther Party, the Native American occupation of Alcatraz, and Los Siete de la Raza allow archives users to learn more about the profound impact that BIPOC communities had in the Bay Area by seeing how their actions played out firsthand.

The Bay Area Television Archive collections includes other materials of interest besides those specifically related to marginalized groups in the Bay Area. For example, the archives has a number of collections dedicated to television footage relating to politicians who were active in the area. For example, the archives has an entire collection dedicated to President Ronald Reagan, which includes local television news footage of Reagan from the year 1965 to the year 1979, the period before his presidency. The archives also has a sizeable collection of materials about Robert F. Kennedy, particularly those involving his visits to the area when he was a senator, as well as his run to be the Democratic Presidential nominee. They even have a collection of television materials relating to Kennedy’s assassination in 1968.

If BIPOC activism and politics are not really your thing, the archives also include a number of collections related to entertainment and sports. In terms of athletes, television footage related to boxers like Muhammad Ali and Jimmy “the Bayview Blaster” Lester make an appearance in the archives’ collections. Additionally, there is a relatively large collection dedicated to local coverage of sporting events and athletes. The archives also includes a number of collections related to arts and culture, including collections on musician Joan Baez, African American Art Exhibitions, Maya Angelou, and the San Francisco Street Artists Movement. There is even an entire collection dedicated to hip hop culture in the Bay Area, covering topics like music, fashion, and art in the 1980s and 1990s. Materials like these go to show that archives that provide access to a variety of television footage, like the Bay Area Television Archive, can be incredibly useful to a diverse audience. Whether you are a serious history fanatic or a casual archives user, the Bay Area Television Archive provides a valuable opportunity to view local history in a really unique way.

“About This Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/about.

“African American Art Exhibitions, 1968-1973.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/11807.

“Bay Area Sports Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/10509.

“Black Panther Party Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/3005.

Browning, Robert X. “The C-SPAN Video Archives: A Case Study.” The American Archivist 77, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2014): 425-443. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43489673.

“Collections.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/#browse-collections.

“Dr. Maya Angelou’s Blacks, Blues, Black!” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/10287.

“Hip Hop Culture.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12612.

“Jimmy Lester (aka the Bayview Blaster) Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12626.

“Joan Baez Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12627.

“Laurie J. Ouellette.” University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://cla.umn.edu/about/directory/profile/ouell031.

“Los Siete de la Raza.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12604.

“Muhammad Ali Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/11420.

“Occupation of Alcatraz Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/2589.

Ouellette, Laurie. “Television.” In The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, 1-20. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/10.1002/9781444361506.wbiems019.  

“Robert F. Kennedy Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12611.

“Ronald Reagan Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12629.

“San Francisco Street Artists Movement.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/11394.

“SFBATV.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv.

“Sirhan Sirhan Collection.” Bay Area Television Archive. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/12646.