An archive of 35 years of TV news, thanks to one woman

Marion Stokes recorded 35 years of television news on VHS tapes. Photo by Flickr user Brad Montgomery

Three and a half decades of television newscasts will find a new home on the Internet Archive, thanks to one woman’s lifelong work of recording the news around-the-clock.

Fast Company reported on the story of Marion Stokes, a former librarian and local television show producer, who recorded everything news-related on television starting in 1977. Utilizing up to eight machines at a time, Stokes recorded news from local, network, and 24-hour cable news channels up to her death in 2012.

Those 35 years filled a total of 140,000 VHS tapes.

Now, the Internet Archive intends to make use of the 35-year news collection by digitizing Stokes’ collection and making it available to search online. Using four storage crates, the tapes will be moved from Philadelphia to a climate-controlled storage facility in Richmond, California, where they will be scanned, one by one.