Archivist Alexis Scargill opens the vault with historic writing lessons, one-room schoolhouse footage, and quirky discoveries from Nebraska Public Media’s collection.
Welcome to the first installment of From the Archives! I’m Alexis Scargill, Media Archivist here at Nebraska Public Media. Each month, I’ll be highlighting treasures from our collection spanning more than 70 years of broadcast history in our great state.
About the Archives
Nebraska Public Media’s vault has audiovisual assets going back to the earliest days of public broadcasting. When I started in this role in August 2023, my priority was creating an item-level inventory of physical assets. This meant cleaning, organizing, replacing collapsed shelving, barcoding each item, and adding it to an inventory spreadsheet. It also occasionally meant questioning what I had gotten myself into… But these days, we’re sitting pretty with inventory records for some 13,000 (and counting!) films, tapes, or boxes of tapes.
In our vault, we have film going back to the 1950s, ¾ inch U-Matic videotapes from 1970, and, of course, thousands of Betacam tapes. Apart from the physical media itself, we also have hundreds of bankers’ boxes of documentation that provides crucial information about our past projects. And if you look through those boxes, you’ll find we also have Taco Bell receipts from when a producer and videographer could eat dinner for under $3 combined. Come to think of it, we also found over-the-counter heartburn medication that expired in 1999. It’s impossible to say if these two purchases were related.
Writing (and Recording) About Writing
Anyone who’s ever endeavored to kick off a new writing project knows how I’m feeling. There’s so much to share – but where to begin? So, I sought guidance from some of the oldest media in our collection. Who is more fitting than Mari Sandoz herself:
Video from: Creative Writing With Mari Sandoz series, 1959
As Mari Sandoz says in her seven-part creative writing series, she benefited from honing her skills in creative writing courses at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Sandoz was generous enough to pay it forward – sharing her insights directly with the viewer, thanks to the advent of public media (even if, as she reportedly told the program’s director Ron Hull, she “would rather face a rattlesnake than that camera”-- one of her many relatable moments through the series.)
The Reason for the Season
Between cleaning the house, shopping for groceries, setting the table, and preparing food for dozens of people, it's understandable to lose sight of the reason for the season -- welcoming others and expressing gratitude for your friends, family, and neighbors. This excerpt, featuring teacher Sarah Jane Graham, is a much-needed reminder for anyone hosting for the holidays:
If writing about writing wasn't meta enough for you-- how about this: a series that documented a relic of the past, 30 years ago. Brain teasers aside, Last of the One Room Schools documents the end of—you guessed it—one-room schools. The subject of this four-part series, Custer County’s Burr Oak School, closed its doors for good in 1999, just four years after this documentary originally aired.
Finally, in the spirit of practicing gratitude, I’m grateful for my job, through which I can appreciate 1974 design such as this, from our Choice magazine.
What would you like to see from the archives?
I would love to hear from you! Send me your feedback at fromthearchives@nebraskapublicmedia.org. Have a great Thanksgiving and I’ll see you in December!