UNT's Morgan Gieringer to Speak at IASA/FIAT Joint Annual Meeting

NBC 5/KXAS-TV in-studio monitor shot, 1973

Morgan Gieringer, Head of Special Collections at the University of North Texas, will be presenting a paper at the upcoming joint annual meeting of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA) and the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) on UNT’s partnership with the oldest television news station in Texas, and their work to preserve over 60 years of film, video, broadcast scripts and other related materials.

The IASA has joined forces this year with IFTA/FIAT to present a joint annual meeting on October 26-29, 2020. The conference program includes a combination of keynote lectures, papers, and workshops. Speakers include representatives of national archives, national broadcasters, and universities around the world. More information about the program and registration may be found online:http://www.fiat-iasa-2020.org/ 

Through UNT’s unique custodial partnership with NBC 5/KXAS-TV, all digitized materials are freely available to view or stream on-line. Additionally, UNT also serves as the licensing agent for the news archive. Working with producers for a variety of outlets including PBS, ESPN, HBO and Netflix. Revenues collected from licensing are applied directly to collection digitization costs. This briefing will provide an overview of the partnership between the university library and the news station, and will describe the growing marketplace for archival media content fueled by demand for original programming from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. It will also provide an overview of the challenges faced by an academic institution acting as licensing agent. 

Gieringer will also discuss the ways the UNT television news archive has adapted and continued operations during COVID-19. Gieringer will be available for Q&A after the paper presentation.