Will Coley
Crowd-sourced resource list generated by the NY Radio Club listserve. Please suggest additions and "up vote" any resources that you have found useful.
For information on "fair use," licensing, etc., see these resources from AIR, KQED, Online News Association.
A collaboration between GBH and the Library of Congress with a long-term vision to preserve and make accessible significant historical content created by public media.
AP Archive is one of the most comprehensive film and video collections in the world. Browse our extensive database of digitized content, including expert features for managing your own personal workspace, online license applications, and new and improved search.
The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and study of sound recordings, in all genres of music and speech, in all formats, and from all periods. ARSC is unique in bringing together private individuals and institutional professionals—everyone with a serious interest in recorded sound.
ARSCLIST and ARSCLIB are ARSC's two unmoderated mail reflectors created to facilitate the exchange of information on sound archives and promote communication among those interested in preserving, documenting, and making accessible the history of recorded sound. Both lists are sponsored by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) as a service to ARSC, and collector and archives communities at large.
The Association of Moving Image Archivists is an international nonprofit association dedicated to the preservation and use of moving image media. We are a global network of media professionals. AMIA members work for universities, studios, government and corporate archives, public broadcasting, music companies, cultural heritage and arts organizations, broadcasters, service providers, libraries, and independent archives, and more. We are archivists, librarians, collectors, curators, students, educators, artists, technologists, researchers, distributors, exhibitors, service providers, consultants, and advocates. Everyone working to preserve and access their media collections.
The British Library has made 50,000 of its 3.5 million sound recordings available online. Content includes interviews and oral histories; nature sounds; music; and historic audio from pioneers of recorded sound. Before using British Library Sounds in your story, please review their legal and ethical usage statement. You may need to request a license.
British Pathé is considered to be the finest newsreel archive in the world and is a treasure trove of 85,000 films unrivalled in their historical and cultural significance. Spanning the years from 1896 to 1978, the collection includes footage from around the globe of major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, science and culture. Over the last 50 years, this material has been used extensively by broadcasters, production companies, corporations, publishers, teachers and museums, among many others. The entire archive is available to view online for free via our website and YouTube. The company also has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, WordPress and LinkedIn. British Pathé also runs an online on-demand service called “British Pathé TV”, created as an alternative to the mainstream broadcast channels and aiming to appeal to specialist audiences – such as history buffs, royal watchers, cinema aficionados and train enthusiasts, among many other groups. Visit www.britishpathe.tv for hundreds of full-length documentaries and classic movies. An in-depth history of British Pathé can be found here. All Rights Reserved. If you wish to license British Pathé footage, please click here for contact details.
The struggle for racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s is among the most far-reaching social movements in the nation's history, and it represents a crucial step in the evolution of American democracy. The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale. The CRDL features a collection of unedited news film from the WSB (Atlanta) and WALB (Albany, Ga.) television archives held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. The CRDL provides educator resources and contextual materials, including Freedom on Film, relating instructive stories and discussion questions from the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia, delivering engaging online articles and multimedia.
C-SPAN.org gives you access to C-SPAN's daily coverage of Washington and more than 200,000 hours of extensively indexed and archived C-SPAN video.
Go ahead and try Pond5 stock video for free! Perfect for a website, video production, or social media post, use these select videos to create a mood, set a scene, and tell your unique story.
The collections put together since the 1930s, which Ina inherited in 1975, contain all types of radio programme from both public and private radio stations. These collections have been enriched ever since and grow day by day within the framework of the legal deposit.
The Internet Archive is a vast collection of text, audiovisual material and software, which can make searches overwhelming. We have identified a few particularly useful collections where you can easily find relevant audio:
TV News Archive: Searchable, closed-captioned broadcast television news from 2009-present. Includes both cable and network news as well as international broadcasters. Ideal for when you’re making a montage of reports from a major event, looking for interview clips or searching for mentions of a name or place.
Universal Newsreels: Public domain newsreels produced by Universal Studios from 1929 to 1967.
News & Public Affairs: This collection includes WWII-era recordings; public and private presidential speeches; public police and fire scanners; and radio programming.
Old Time Radio: Radio dramas, readings, WWII news and musical performances dating back to the 1920s. This material is available through Creative Commons licensing, so please review usage terms of each program before using audio in your piece.
Pacifica Radio Archives: Non-commercial, listener-supported radio programming spanning “documentaries, performances, discussions, debates, drama, poetry readings, commentaries and radio arts” from the second half of the 20th century.
Prelinger Archives: Public domain commercials, public service announcements and educational films dating back to the 1890s.
We are , an independent agency representing remarkable and rare archive footage from around the world. Our exciting archive film collections tell a century of stories spanning the last century. Why not contact us with your search request and see what we can find for you...
The majority of the films and videos in the Library of Congress are not available for duplication due to copyright and/or donor restrictions...The most accessible collections of archival footage in the Library of Congress available for purchase include The American Memory Films.
The (formerly the Online Alan Lomax Archive) provides free access to audio/visual collections compiled across seven decades by folklorist Alan Lomax (1915–2002) and his father John A. Lomax (1867–1948).
This library contains digital movies uploaded by Archive users which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download. Check our FAQ for more information.
National Film and Sound Archive of Australia is the custodian of over 3 million items that we collect and preserve for future generations. Search our collection online.
The NBC News Archives features contemporary and archival video footage from landmark historical events, captured by one of the biggest names in news. Access and download over 50,000 digital clips and hundreds of thousands of hours of broadcast news.
The Archives of Recorded Sound is housed on the third floor of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Library, along with the dance, music, and theatre research collections. Staff members, knowledgeable in all aspects of recorded sound, are available to assist users in their research. All materials are noncirculating and must be studied on the premises.
The Moving Image and Sound Branch is currently accepting Item Approval Request Lists (IARL) Form (NA 14110) and reproduction orders. Requests will be addressed in the order received.
NARA cannot guarantee timelines for approval and filling of orders, and some items ordered from our offsite storage facility may experience delays in shipment and delivery.
Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 20,000 digitized titles (all originally derived from film) and a large collection of home movies, amateur and industrial films acquired since 2002. Its primary collection emphasis has turned toward home movies and amateur films, with approximately 30,000 items held as of Fall 2023. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and over 8,800 items (representing approximately 6,000 distinct films) are available here.
This database of sound collections is a project of the Library of Congress NRPB, RPTF, and ARSC.
For over forty years, Studs explored a variety of themes, from architecture to rock music, from poetry to the intricacies of the labor movement. the archive by topic, people, date, or keyword.
UCLA Film & Television Archive is renowned for its pioneering efforts to rescue, preserve and showcase moving image media, and is dedicated to ensuring that the collective visual memory of our time is explored and enjoyed for generations to come. Established in 1965, the Archive is the second-largest repository of motion pictures and broadcast programming in the United States, after the Library of Congress, and the world's largest university-held collection.
Multimedia credited to NPS without any copyright symbol are public domain. Multimedia credited with a copyright symbol (indicating that the creator may maintain rights to the work) or credited to any entity other than NPS must not be presumed to be public domain; contact the host park or program to ascertain who owns the material.
