Media History Digital Library

Film historian David Pierce founded the Media History Digital Library in 2009 to address the scholarly and fan communities' lack of access to historical film industry publications such as trade papers and fan magazines. Even those documents that had been transferred to microfilm were infrequently digitized, making both the original works and any microfilm copies only available at specific libraries, archives, and private collections. Having knowledge of copyright laws, Pierce determined that while many early Hollywood films, kinescopes, recordings, and similar materials would be protected by copyright, most publications would not. Working with partners at collections such as the Museum of Modern Art Library, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library, and the Library of Congress National Audio Visual Conservation Center as well as private collectors, Pierce began to scan the original copies of many of these publications documenting the early history of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound.{{Cite web |title=MHDL: Project History and Impact |url=https://mediahistoryproject.org/projecthistory.html |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=mediahistoryproject.org}}{{Cite journal |last=Pierce |first=David |date=April 2013 |title=The Media History Digital Library |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1370361564 |journal=Journal of Film Preservation |issue=88 |pages=35–39 |id={{ProQuest|1370361564}} |via=ProQuest}}

In 2011, Pierce and fellow film history scholar Eric Hoyt built a website to expand access to the more than 200,000 pages of movie magazines they had digitized, which would be hosted on the Internet Archive. Hoyt launched the search platform Lantern in 2013 and in 2014 began work on Arclight, a data visualization platform.

Pierce stepped down as director in 2017 and Hoyt assumed the position, bringing it fully under the purview of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2021, Hoyt became director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research and brought the MHDL under its leadership.{{Cite web |title=Research Cores Initiative helps replace equipment and enhance services |url=https://news.wisc.edu/research-cores-initiative-helps-replace-equipment-and-enhance-services/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=news.wisc.edu |language=en-US}}

The Media History Digital Library's collections include millions of digitized pages and focus on out-of-copyright works from the early history of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. The data is hosted by the Internet Archive.{{Cite web |title=Media History Digital Library : Free Texts : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive |url=https://archive.org/details/mediahistory |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=archive.org |language=en}} Its major collections include fan magazines, global cinema publications, Hollywood pressbooks, and trade papers.{{Cite web |title=MHDL: All Magazine Collections |url=https://mediahistoryproject.org/collections/index.html |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=mediahistoryproject.org}} As of 2011, the MHDL collection encompassed more than 200,000 pages. By 2013, the total had reached about 489,000 pages, and by 2014, that number had grown to 800,000.{{Cite journal |last=Kousari |first=Nadia |date=2014-01-14 |title=Media History Digital Library: Online Access to the Histories of Cinema, Broadcasting and Social Media |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/RR-08-2013-0220/full/html |journal=Reference Reviews |language=en |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=37–38 |doi=10.1108/RR-08-2013-0220 |issn=0950-4125 |via=ProQuest|url-access=subscription }} In July 2022, MHDL director Eric Hoyt announced on Twitter that the collection had reached "roughly 3 million pages,"{{Citation |last=Hoyt |first=Eric [@HoytEric] |title=Lantern 2.0 is here! |url=https://twitter.com/HoytEric/status/1547294318334992384 |year=2022 |access-date=2022-07-14 }} and the Lantern homepage said it was "now searching 2,827,907 pages."{{Cite web |title=Lantern |url=https://lantern.mediahist.org/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=lantern.mediahist.org}}

MHDL collections are free to use and download. They are searchable at the page level, but users can also access the full volumes via links to the Internet Archive. All page records include detailed reference information for the complete volume. Collections include short, informative descriptions written by scholars in the field to contextualize the content of each grouping.{{Cite journal |last=Stamm |first=Michael |date=2014-01-02 |title=Media History Digital Library |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/08821127.2014.875361 |journal=American Journalism |language=en-US |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=147–149 |doi=10.1080/08821127.2014.875361 |s2cid=61017172 |issn=0882-1127|url-access=subscription }}

Source:

Documents in the MHDL collections include issues from both prominent and obscure magazines and trade papers that are now out of copyright and therefore in the public domain. Notable publications that continue to this day include The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Billboard, and Boxoffice. Major publications of significance to historians include Motion Picture Daily, Moving Picture World, Photoplay, Film Daily, Motion Picture Herald, Motography, and the New York Clipper.

The MHDL organizes its U.S.-published materials under the following headings:

• Books
• Broadcasting & recorded sound
• Early cinema
• Fan magazines
• Government & law
• Hollywood studio system
• Magic lantern
• Non-theatrical film
• Pressbooks
• Technical journals
• Theatre & vaudeville
• Yearbooks

The MHDL's global cinema collection contains publications from around the world in the following countries and regions:{{Cite web |title=MHDL: Global Cinema Collection |url=https://mediahistoryproject.org/globalcinema/index.html |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=mediahistoryproject.org}}

• China
• Europe
• France
• Germany
• Includes {{Interlanguage link|Der Kinematograph|de}} and {{Interlanguage link|Die Lichtbildbühne|de}}, two leading publications that documented the German film industry through the Weimar period, rise of German Expressionism, and fall during the rise of the Nazis.
• India
• Iran
• Italy
• Japan
• Latin America and Spanish-speaking United States
• Netherlands
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom

Lantern is the MHDL's primary search platform with a visualization component. It allows users to search the collections using keywords, title, year, author, subject, publisher, and/or description.{{Cite web |title=Advanced Search - Lantern |url=https://lantern.mediahist.org/advanced |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=lantern.mediahist.org}} First launched in 2011 by David Pierce and Eric Hoyt with Carl Hagenmaier and Wendy Hagenmaier,{{Cite journal |last1=Hoyt |first1=Eric |last2=Hagenmaier |first2=Wendy |last3=Hagenmaier |first3=Carl |date=2013 |title=Media + History + Digital + Library: An Experiment in Synthesis |url=http://journals.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/xmlpage/4/article/430 |journal=Journal of E-Media Studies |language=en |volume=3 |issue=1 |doi=10.1349/PS1.1938-6060.A.430 |issn=1938-6060|doi-access=free }} it was re-launched in 2022 with a design by Samuel Hansen and Ben Pettis.{{Citation |last=Media History Digital Library [@mediahistorydl] |title=Exciting Lantern news! |url=https://twitter.com/mediahistorydl/status/1546944018134835201 |year=2022 |access-date=2022-07-14 }}{{Cite web |title=MHDL: About |url=https://mediahistoryproject.org/about.html |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=mediahistoryproject.org}} The search engine reads the text on every page of the MHDL's nearly 3 million pages as well as their metadata and returns the result with a preview image of the pages on which the text is displayed.{{Cite web |title=About Lantern |url=https://lantern.mediahist.org/about |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=lantern.mediahist.org}} In 2014, Hoyt published an article in Film History explaining the search engine's goals, methods, and concerns. He argued that scholars too frequently rely on "canonical" texts such as Variety and thus outlined the need for better data visualization tools.{{Cite journal |last=Hoyt |first=Eric |date=2014 |title=Lenses for Lantern: Data Mining, Visualization, and Excavating Film History's Neglected Sources |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1541683957 |journal=Film History |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=146–169 |doi=10.2979/filmhistory.26.2.146 |s2cid=201767611 |id={{ProQuest|1541683957}} |via=ProQuest|url-access=subscription }}

Primarily intended for scholars of the digital humanities and film history, Arclight searches the text of all pages in MHDL collections to retrieve and visualize data about keywords and trends within a given timeframe. It primarily shows the number of pages on which a search term appears, but users can also adjust the results to show the number of pages as a percentage of the total MHDL holdings.{{Cite web |title=Arclight |url=https://projectarclight.org/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=projectarclight.org}}{{Cite web |title=Frequently Asked Questions |url=https://search.projectarclight.org/about.html |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=search.projectarclight.org}} The project was funded by a "Digging into Data" grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services in the United States and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada.{{Cite web |title=Search |url=https://search.projectarclight.org/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=search.projectarclight.org}} It was inspired by contemporary social science researchers' use of platforms like Twitter Analytics to study online conversation. The project's co-creators, Eric Hoyt and Charles R. Acland, published an edited collection, The Arclight Guidebook to Media History and the Digital Humanities outlining the method, design, and ways of using the platform.{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/952123686 |title=The Arclight Guidebook to Media History and the Digital Humanities |publisher=REFRAME Books |others=Charles R. Acland, Eric Hoyt |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-9931996-7-7 |edition=PDF |location=Sussex, England |oclc=952123686}}

The MHDL curates and makes freely available lesson plans, toolkits, and assignments both for instructors looking to incorporate its collections into their classrooms and for students of all levels. These resources range from tutorials for those using the MHDL, Lantern, and Arclight for the first time to suggestions for experienced researchers looking to expand the scope of their work.{{Cite web |title=MHDL: Teaching Resources |url=https://mediahistoryproject.org/teaching/index.html |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=mediahistoryproject.org}} MHDL collaborators also give presentations and workshops at various academic conferences, such as the 2021 HoMER Conference{{Citation |last1=Hoyt |first1=Eric |title=Digitizing Ephemera And Building Interactive Timelines: A Hands-On Workshop |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLTdqqj0xUg |publication-date=May 29, 2021 |publisher=HoMER 2021 |language=en |access-date=2022-07-15 |last2=Stevenson |first2=Lesley}} and the 2022 International Association for Media and History Conference.{{Cite web |last=Chapman |first=Llewella |date=2022-05-29 |title=A Film Scholarship without Films? Reimagining the History of Israeli Cinema Culture through the Archive |url=https://iamhist.net/2022/05/film-scholarship-films-reimagining-history-israeli-cinema-culture-archive/ |access-date=2022-07-15 |language=en-US}}

• Society for Cinema and Media Studies' Anne Friedberg Innovative Scholarship Award, for Lantern (2014){{Cite web |title=Anne Friedberg, Innovative Scholarship, and Close Up (1927-1933) {{!}} Antenna |url=https://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2014/01/24/anne-friedberg-innovative-scholarship-and-close-up-1927-1933/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |language=en-US}}
• Pop Culture Association's Electronic Reference Award, for Lantern (2014){{Cite web |title=2014 Award Winners {{!}} PCA/ACA |url=https://pcaaca.org/awards/2014-award-winners |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=pcaaca.org}}
• American Association of School Librarians' Best Digital Tools (2014){{Cite web |title=Best Digital Tools for Teaching & Learning |url=https://www.ala.org/aasl/awards/best |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=American Association of School Librarians |date=29 October 2014 |publisher=American Library Association |location=Chicago}}
• Institute for Museum and Library Services and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's Digging into Data Challenge (2013){{Cite web |title=Project Arclight: Analytics for the Study of 20th Century Media {{!}} Digging Into Data |url=https://diggingintodata.org/awards/2013/project/project-arclight-analytics-study-20th-century-media |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=diggingintodata.org |language=en}}
• International Association for Media and History's Michael Nelson Prize for a Work in Media and History (2013){{Cite web |date=2017-07-12 |title=Hoyt, Eric |url=https://commarts.wisc.edu/staff/hoyt-eric/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=Department of Communication Arts |language=en-US}}
• Pop Culture Association's Electronic Reference Award, for Media History Digital Library (2012){{Cite web |title=2012 Award Winners {{!}} PCA/ACA |url=https://pcaaca.org/awards/2012-award-winners |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=pcaaca.org}}

• Ink-Stained Hollywood: The Triumph of American Cinema's Trade Press (2022), by Eric Hoyt{{Cite book |last=Hoyt |first=Eric |url=https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520383692/ink-stained-hollywood |title=Ink-Stained Hollywood: The Triumph of American Cinema's Trade Press |date=March 2022 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-38369-2 |language=en}}
• Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life (2022), by James Curtis{{Cite book |last=Curtis |first=James |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1252413511 |title=Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life |date=2022 |isbn=978-0-385-35421-9 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=1252413511}}{{Cite web |date=2022-03-25 |title=Los Angeles Review of Books |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/buster-keaton-a-timeless-comedian/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books |language=en}}
• Mapping Movie Magazines: Digitization, Periodicals, and Cinema History (2021), edited by Daniel Biltereyst and Lies Van de Vijver{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1241246094 |title=MAPPING MOVIE MAGAZINES : digitization, periodicals and cinema history. |date=2021 |publisher=PALGRAVE MACMILLAN |isbn=978-3-030-33279-2 |location=[S.l.] |oclc=1241246094}}
• Everyday Movies: Portable Film Projectors and the Transformation of American Culture (2020), by Haidee Wasson{{Cite book |last=Wasson |first=Haidee |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1151533822 |title=Everyday movies portable film projectors and the transformation of American culture |date=2021 |isbn=978-0-520-97437-1 |location=Oakland, California |oclc=1151533822}}
• Applied Media Studies (2018), edited by Kristen Ostherr{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1015675836 |title=Applied Media Studies |publisher=Routledge |year=2018 |isbn=978-1-315-47383-3 |editor-last=Ostherr |editor-first=Kirsten |location=New York |oclc=1015675836}}
• Locating Classical Receptions on Screen Masks, Echoes, Shadows (2018), edited by Anastasia Bakogianni and Ricado Apostol{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1057550235 |title=Locating classical receptions on screen : masks, echoes, shadows |date=2018 |others=Ricardo Apostol, Anastasia Bakogianni |isbn=978-3-319-96457-7 |location=Cham |oclc=1057550235}}
• A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen (2017), edited by Arthur J. Pomeroy{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/990058590 |title=A companion to ancient Greece and Rome on screen |date=2017 |others=Arthur John Pomeroy |isbn=978-1-118-74138-2 |location=Hoboken, NJ, USA |oclc=990058590}}
• Hollywood Vault: Film Libraries before Home Video (2014), by Eric Hoyt{{Cite book |last=Hoyt |first=Eric |url=https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520282643/hollywood-vault |title=Hollywood Vault: Film Libraries before Home Video |date=July 2014 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-28264-3 |language=en}}

• "'How’s Your Sense of Direction?' Using Movie Magazines to Study Audiences’ Perception of Classical Hollywood Directors, 1934–1943," by Dominic Topp{{Citation |last=Topp |first=Dominic |title="How's Your Sense of Direction?" Using Movie Magazines to Study Audiences' Perception of Classical Hollywood Directors, 1934–1943 |date=2020 |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33277-8_13 |work=Mapping Movie Magazines |series=Global Cinema |pages=257–278 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en-US |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-33277-8_13 |isbn=978-3-030-33276-1 |s2cid=216444696 |access-date=2022-07-14|url-access=subscription }}
• "'The keenest, most intimate analysis': Profiling Female Stars of the Silent Screen in Photoplay Magazine," by Elizabeth Podnieks{{Cite journal |last=Podnieks |first=Elizabeth |date=2017-05-15 |title="The keenest, most intimate analysis": Profiling Female Stars of the Silent Screen in Photoplay Magazine |url=https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/33696 |language=en}}
• "'Frankenstein Complex' in the Realm of Digital Humanities: Data Mining Classic Horror Cinema via Media History Digital Library, by Tianyu Jiang{{Cite book |last=Jiang |first=Tianyu |url=http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-169638 |title="Frankenstein Complex" in the Realm of Digital Humanities : Data Mining Classic Horror Cinema via Media History Digital Library (MHDL) |date=2019}}
• "Digital Humanities and Media History: A Challenge for Historical Newspaper Research," by Huub Wijfjes{{Cite journal |last=Wijfjes |first=Huub |date=2017-06-26 |title=Digital Humanities and Media History: A Challenge for Historical Newspaper Research1 |journal=TMG Journal for Media History |language=en |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=4–24 |doi=10.18146/2213-7653.2017.277 |s2cid=220383218 |issn=2213-7653|doi-access=free }}
• "Browsing the Digital Stacks: Exploring Technology Journals on the Media History Digital Library," by Derek Long{{Cite journal |last=Long |first=Derek |date=2015 |title=Browsing The Digital Stacks: Exploring Technology Journals On The Media History Digital Library |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/590948#sub07 |journal=The Velvet Light Trap |volume=76 |issue=1 |pages=65–67 |issn=1542-4251}}
• "Locked in the Coffin: Bela Lugosi and the Paradox of the Picture Personality," by [https://my3ammusemedia.com/author/3ammusemedia/ ABC]{{Cite web |last=ABC |date=2019-01-17 |title=Locked In the Coffin: Bela Lugosi and the Paradox of the Picture Personality |url=https://my3ammusemedia.com/2019/01/17/locked-in-the-coffin-bela-lugosi-and-the-paradox-of-the-picture-personality-2/ |access-date=2022-07-14 |website=It's 3 A.M. Again |language=en}}
• "Who's Trending in 1910s American Cinema? Exploring ECHO and MHDL at Scale with Arclight," by Derek Long, Eric Hoyt, Kevin Ponto, Tony Tran, and Kit Hughes{{Cite journal |last1=Long |first1=Derek |last2=Hoyt |first2=Eric |last3=Ponto |first3=Kevin |last4=Tran |first4=Tony |last5=Hughes |first5=Kit |date=2016 |title=Who's Trending in 1910s American Cinema? Exploring ECHO and MHDL at Scale with Arclight |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/movingimage.16.1.0057 |journal=The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=57–81 |doi=10.5749/movingimage.16.1.0057 |jstor=10.5749/movingimage.16.1.0057 |s2cid=193575392 |issn=1532-3978|url-access=subscription }}
• "Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Audiences and the Fallout of the Talkies, 1910-1968," by Will Gotlib{{Cite journal |last=Gotlib |first=Will |date=May 2021 |title=Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Audiences and the Fallout of the Talkies, 1910-1968 |url=https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/105775 |journal= |language=en-ca}}
• "Arclights and Zoom Lenses," by Eric Hoyt, in The Routledge Companion to New Cinema History{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1079400737 |title=The Routledge companion to new cinema history |date=2019 |others=Daniël Biltereyst, Richard Maltby, Philippe Meers |isbn=978-1-315-66605-1 |location=Abingdon, Oxon |oclc=1079400737}}
• "Modeling Media History," by Pelle Snickars{{Cite journal |last=Snickars |first=Pelle |date=2022-05-25 |title=Modeling Media History |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2022.2079484 |journal=Media History |volume=28 |issue=3 |language=en-US |pages=403–424 |doi=10.1080/13688804.2022.2079484 |s2cid=249078255 |issn=1368-8804|url-access=subscription }}
• "Maternal Stars of the Silent Screen: Gender, Genre, and Photoplay Magazine" by Elizabeth Podnieks{{Cite journal |last=Podnieks |first=Elizabeth |date=2018-09-02 |title=Maternal Stars of the Silent Screen: Gender, Genre, and Photoplay Magazine |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2018.1499490 |journal=A/B: Auto/Biography Studies |language=en-US |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=578–587 |doi=10.1080/08989575.2018.1499490 |s2cid=192567622 |issn=0898-9575|url-access=subscription }}
• "Reconsidering the Archive: Digitization and Latin American Film Historiography," by Rielle Navitski{{Cite journal |last=Navitski |first=Rielle |date=2014 |title=Reconsidering the Archive: Digitization and Latin American Film Historiography |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43653661 |journal=Cinema Journal |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=121–128 |doi=10.1353/cj.2014.0065 |jstor=43653661 |s2cid=143450056 |issn=0009-7101|url-access=subscription }}
• "Amateur cinematics: Watson and Webber’s The Fall of the House of Usher," by Dwight Swanson{{Cite journal |last=Swanson |first=Dwight |date=2020 |title=Amateur cinematics: Watson and Webber's The Fall of the House of Usher |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjaa009 |journal=Screen |language=en-US |volume=61 |issue=1 |pages=138–146 |doi=10.1093/screen/hjaa009 |issn=0036-9543|url-access=subscription }}

The MHDL, Lantern, and Arclight have been reviewed in academic journals, including:

• Publicaciones de la Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales (2021), Pamela Gionco{{Cite journal |last=Gionco |first=Pamela |date=2021 |title=HOYT, Eric y PIERCE, David. Media History Digital Library (MHDL), 2011 |url=https://www.aacademica.org/noviembrehd/23 |journal=Publicaciones de la Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales |publisher=Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=172–177}}
• Journal of American History (2020), by Katie Day Good{{Cite journal |last=Good |first=Katie Day |date=2020-06-01 |title=The Media History Digital Library |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaaa175 |journal=Journal of American History |language=en-US |volume=107 |issue=1 |pages=299–301 |doi=10.1093/jahist/jaaa175 |issn=0021-8723|url-access=subscription }}
• Media Industries (2017), by James Steffen
• American Journalism (2014), by Michael Stamm

{{reflist}}

• [https://mediahistoryproject.org/ MHDL official site]
• [https://lantern.mediahist.org/ Lantern homepage]
• [https://search.projectarclight.org/ Arclight homepage]
• [https://projectarclight.org/ Project Arclight website]
• [https://mediahistoryproject.org/teaching/index.html MHDL teaching resoources]

Category:Open-access archives

Category:Online archives

Category:Online film databases

Category:Film preservation

Category:History of film

Category:American film websites

Category:Discipline-oriented digital libraries