First Television Station in Baltimore

In 1956, 2” Quad became the first videotape format with commercial success. From that point until the late 1970s, this video format was used to record the vast majority of broadcast television. The playback equipment needed to view 2” Quad tape is extremely expensive to purchase and maintain which makes accessing the analog video signals recorded in this format very difficult. The only effective way to provide access to these unique moving images and recorded sounds is to digitize them.

 

 

The Special Collections Department at the University of Baltimore’s Langsdale Library recently reformatted a part of the local Baltimore television collection, WMAR-TV Collection. The content was stored in its original inaccessible form of 2” Quadruplex open reel videotape (2” Quad), which is the most unstable video format.

 

Local television stations, such as Baltimore’s WMAR, are continuing to cover both regional and national news stories and events. TV came to Baltimore during the post-World War II bang. WMAR-TV was the first television station in Baltimore and one of the first TV stations in America, going on air on October 30, 1947. WMAR is one of the three major Baltimore television stations, which have survived, providing a significant historical video documentation of the region and nation from a Baltimore viewpoint. There are several mentions of national political figures in the 2” Quad from WMAR-TV, such as President Eisenhower, dating from 1965-1969, including “Eisenhower Obituary”, as well as Spiro Agnew, 55^th Governor of Maryland and 39^th Vice President of the United States who resigned after corruption charges. These tapes date from 1968 to 1973. There are several other notable topics in this collection including: the Preakness (1974), “1984 in Maryland: A Birthday Celebration”, and “Sights and Sounds Baltimore City Fair” (1983).

 

If you would like to find out more about what is available in our WMAR-TV Collection, you can browse the complete database here.


“1984 in Maryland: A Birthday Celebration”

 

Finding AV in Special Collections

There have been a few blog posts written before about the WMAR-TV and WJZ-TV Collections, but today I would like to discuss the process of actually finding and accessing an AV item that is requested.

First, how might researchers even know where to look for WMAR, WJZ or Baltimore-area news footage? They would most likely conduct a Google search which would show (a few hits down in the results) the Langdale Library Special Collections’ website. We also have a collection-level entry in ourlibrary catalog that will show as a result in searching WorldCat.org. This points to collection-level finding aids, which then points to that particular collection on the Special Collections’ website.

Our website has inventories online that describes many item-level objects for these two collections--although not everything that we have is mentioned online. For the WMAR-TV Series I film reels, we inherited old paper-filled log books where most of the films are described with key subjects and terms, chronologically. Large portions of these have been electronically transcribed and are in word-searchable HTML tables that are also searched by Google (here is an example of one). For the rest of the collection, the logs are either not online or scanned but not searchable (and in cursive, which many people these days cannot read). The WJZ-TV inventory is a list of the titles on the videocassettes containers in word-searchable PDFs—just CTRL-F and type in the term you are looking for.

Binders full of films: the WMAR-TV Collection Log Books

Once you know what you want, we have a location register in Excel for me to easily find the boxes in our storage areas. The film reels take a bit more time to find as their locations are not in the register: they are not stored in boxes so they need to be entered into the Excel at the item-level and there are about 4,000 of these reels (we are slowly working on this, but, like many libraries and archives, we have limited time and resources).

After I physically find the item, if it is a Umatic, VHS, or Betacam tape, I then can make a digitized copy for you pending some restrictions. However if it is any other AV format it must be sent out to a vendor at cost to the patron. If it is one of our 4,000 16mm films, I can only send a photo of a pertinent frame for whatever subject you are looking for. We cannot project the film as this will irreparably damage the film and as archivists we are bound to “do no harm” to our collections. 

Recent film frame sent to a patron: Eubie Blake playing the piano in 1973.

If you see the photo I send to you and absolutely must have a digitized copy of the film, you must pay to have it sent to a professional preservation vendor to have the whole reel or video digitized (we must approve of the vendor as there are many qualifications they must meet). We initially provide 1 hour of work for free (please read more about our services here). These charges help us to maintain our expensive obsolete AV equipment, purchase preservation supplies and containers, and to overall better care for and provide access to these collections.

As tapes and films are digitized, we take any information we can find about that item and upload them to the InternetArchive collection for viewing and downloading for non-commercial purposes. There are several hours uploaded per week of unique Baltimore-area history, so please stay tuned for more!

Baltimore in Shades of Grey

A few days have passed since the closing night of the 16th annual Maryland Film Festival (MFF), and the overall consensus seems that it was a huge success--despite lacking The Charles as a venue. In its stead, there were several new venues, one of which was the Langsdale Library Auditorium.

On our blog, we have previously discussed the illustrious cinematic history of the auditorium, but today I would like to discuss another film that premiered in the Landsdale Library Auditorium during MFF: BALTIMORE IN BLACK IN WHITE (2014). A documentary feature, co-directed by Emily Topper and Mary Posatko, it focuses on one of the filmmakers themselves. Emily Topper was born and raised in the Edmondson Village neighborhood of Baltimore, and the film follows her and her crew through the maze of grief and memory in search of answers to the 1972 murder of her grandfather.

The filmmakers create a sense of place without using archival footage or very many historical photographs. There is present-day footage of the specific landmarks involved in the story, along with a few family pictures from the time. It was less a historical documentary, and more of historiographical process: they try to find the transcripts of the trial, but they were lost in a flood at the Maryland State Archives; they try to conduct interviews of those who attended the trial and lived through the aftermath, but they find that firsthand accounts are often biased and changeable. One of the only interviews of a non-directly-involved participant is that of former Baltimore City Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, who grew up in Edmondson Village during the time, and (side note) who has just been announced this morning as the new President of the University of Baltimore.

There isn't necessarily a strict conclusion to the documentary, and all of its players come across much more complex than initially introduced, and historical truth as much less (dare I write it?) black and white, more a limited smattering of shades of grey.

<<Siobhan Hagan, AV Archivist