Tips Before Visiting an Archive or Special Collection
Plan ahead; contact staff at the institution of interest before your visit.
Work with a librarian or archivist at NUL, in order to make sure that your research for secondary materials that relate to materials at the archive/special collection are available for your use at NUL.
Archive of American TelevisionFounded in 1997, the Television Academy Foundation’s Archive of American Television has conducted nearly 700 long-form videotaped interviews with the pioneers of television. These interviews chronicle the birth and growth of American TV History.
Special Collections in Mass Media and Culture is the National Public Broadcasting Archives, which documents the history of public and educational broadcasting in the United States.
Available videos range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many are available for free download.
Collected Catalogs
The catalogs below search the holdings of hundreds of libraries, musuems, and archives.
Archive FinderArchive Finder brings together ArchivesUSA and the cumulative index to the National Inventory of Documentary Sources in the UK and Ireland (NIDS UK/Ireland). ArchivesUSA is a current directory of over 5,500 repositories and more than 161,000 collections of primary source material across the United States.
ArchiveGridArchiveGrid includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
WorldCatA catalog that allows you to search most major research collections in the U.S. as well as some foreign libraries.
filmarchives onlineEuropean Collections: The focus is on non-fiction material; i.e. documentary and educational films, newsreels, travelogue, advertising, scientific, industrial, experimental, sports films, as well as animation films.