EBSCO Scholarships in Audio-Visual Preservation and Archiving
In collaboration with WGBH public media in Boston and the Library of Congress, Alabama SLIS invites applications for a scholarship program for students interested in the preservation and archiving of legacy media from American public broadcasting stations. Interested students should apply for the program by submitting a separate statement of purpose describing why they are interested in preservation of historical media.
Students will complete the requirements for the Archival Concentration that will include courses in the fundamentals of digitizing audio-visual content and preparing it for ingest into the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB). The plan of study for EBSCO Scholars can be found here. In the second year of the program, students will complete two internships, one in the fall and one in the spring. Students will be placed in internships in public media stations in their regions. Each student will work 150 hours per semester on-site at the station for each internship. Materials produced during the internships will be contributed to the online AAPB and the Library of Congress’s collections. These internships are required of all students. Please do not apply for this scholarship without verifying you will be available and able to serve the internships.
In addition to coursework, students will attend a week-long immersion workshop in Tuscaloosa in the August before their first internship semester. At this workshop, students will learn how to work with various kinds of broadcast equipment and digitization hardware and software. Students will also be introduced to the fundamentals of digital librarianship, including the management of digital files and the function of metadata to organize and facilitate access to the files. The scholarship will pay 50% of the student’s tuition for the entire MLIS degree. The scholarship also pays basic expenses to attend the summer workshop, including transportation and lodging.
To apply for an EBSCO Scholarship, students should write a one-page statement describing their interest in the program and how their past experiences demonstrate that interest. No experience with digital media is required to qualify for a scholarship, though enthusiasm for public media and excitement about the possibilities of emerging forms of digital collections will be an obvious asset. Evaluation of scholarship applications begins March 15 and will continue until available positions have been filled. Send one-page statements and any questions to Dr. Dimitrios Latsis at dlatsis@ua.edu.