American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB)

Digital Preservation of Public Broadcast Media

AAPB logo

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between GBH Boston and the Library of Congress that aims to preserve at-risk public broadcast media. In 2023, the project was awarded a $16 million grant by the Mellon Foundation to accelerate its preservation efforts (see press release).

As a Digital Archivist at Digital Bedrock, I helped orchestrate digital preservation of AAPB’s multi-petabyte collection:

Data Analysis and Reporting

  • Utilized Python libraries such as Pandas and Jupyter Notebooks to:
    • Analyze large datasets of media metadata.
    • Identify discrepancies and flag files requiring attention.
    • Summarize reports for project stakeholders.

File Integrity and Validation

  • Ensured media integrity using SHA256 hashing to verify and document file authenticity.

Physical Media Preparation

  • Oversaw the migration of thousands of media files to LTO-8 tape, a highly reliable and durable storage format.
  • Coordinated redundant copies for distributed geographic storage.

This role illustrates my ability to manage large-scale digital preservation and data migration workflows and highlights my expertise in combining technical skills with archival best practices.