Rick Prelinger
Encyclopedia
Archivist
An archivist is a professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to information determined to have long-term value. The information maintained by an archivist can be any form of media...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and filmmaker, and founder of the Prelinger Archives
Prelinger Archives
The Prelinger Archives is a collection of films relating to U.S. cultural history, the evolution of the American landscape, everyday life and social history...
, a collection of 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films acquired by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in 2002 after 20 years' operation.
Rick has partnered with the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
to make 1,970 films from Prelinger Archives available online for free viewing, downloading and reuse. With the Voyager Company, a pioneer new media publisher, he produced fourteen laserdiscs and CD-ROMs with material from his archives, including Ephemeral Films, the Our Secret Century series and Call It Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built, a laserdisc on the history of suburbia and suburban planning (co-produced with architect Keller Easterling).
He worked at the Comedy Channel from its startup in 1989 until it was merged into the comedy network HA!, and then worked at Home Box Office
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
until 1995. Rick has taught in the MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
Design program at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
and lectures widely on American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
cultural and social history and on issues of cultural and intellectual property access. He sat (2001–2004) on the National Film Preservation Board
National Film Preservation Board
The United States National Film Preservation Board is the board selecting films for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. It was established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988...
as representative of the Association of Moving Image Archivists
Association of Moving Image Archivists
The Association of Moving Image Archivists is a 501 not-for-profit organization established to advance the field of moving image archiving by fostering cooperation among individuals and organizations concerned with the acquisition, description, preservation, exhibition and use of moving image...
, was Board President of the San Francisco Cinematheque (2002–2007), and is currently Board President of the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
.
His feature-length film Panorama Ephemera, depicting the conflicted landscapes of 20th-century America, opened in summer 2004. He is co-founder of the Prelinger Library
Prelinger Library
The Prelinger Library is a privately funded public library in San Francisco founded in 2004 and operated by Rick Prelinger and his spouse, Megan Shaw Prelinger. It features over 50,000 books, periodicals and pieces of print ephemera...
(with spouse Megan Shaw Prelinger), an appropriation-friendly reference library located in San Francisco.
He wrote The Field Guide to Sponsored Films (2007) which "describes 452 historically or culturally significant motion pictures commissioned by businesses, charities, advocacy groups, and state or local government units between 1897 and 1980." It is available as a book and as a free PDF from the National Film Preservation Foundation
National Film Preservation Foundation
The National Film Preservation Foundation is an independent, nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. Growing from a national planning effort led by the Library of Congress, the NFPF began operations in 1997. It supports activities nationwide that...
. He recently (2005–2007) worked at the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
on a large-scale texts digitization project and recently helped organize the Open Content Alliance
Open Content Alliance
The Open Content Alliance is a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by Yahoo!, the Internet Archive, the University of California, the University of Toronto and others...
.
External links
- Interview with Ràdio Web MACBA (2011)
- Lecture on his film collection and the future of archiving at MACBA (2011)
- Interview/podcast on the future of archives and issues relating to access to archives and culture (2011)
- Interview with Spots Unknown
- Prelinger.com
- blackoystercatcher, Rick Prelinger's blog
- Prelinger Library
- Prelinger Collection
- Panorama Ephemera
- Panorama Ephemera published in the Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic VernacularVectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic VernacularVectors is an international online journal produced by the University of Southern California's Institute for Multimedia Literacy. Launched in March 2005, the journal's current issue is its fifth, titled "Difference". Through all of the issues, Vectors has featured over thirty scholarly new media...
, Volume 2 Issue 1 (Ephemera). - The Field Guide to Sponsored Films
- Prelinger's "Reimagining the Archive" presentation at UCLA, November 2010