’s School of Information, working in partnership with nationally recognized public broadcaster GBH of Boston, Massachusetts, and local public radio station WKSU (which serves 20 counties in Ohio and parts of Western Pennsylvania), has named MLIS student Amanda Gedeon as its recipient for the 2022-2023 GBH/IMLS Public Broadcasting Preservation Fellowship.
This fellowship, generously funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, provides a library and information science student with the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience in audiovisual archiving by working with a local broadcaster to preserve and catalog its historic sound and moving image materials.
When deliberating Fellowship applications, the committee was particularly impressed by Ms. Gedeon’s credentials and interest in audiovisual archiving. Before enrolling in the MLIS program at Kent State, she earned an MA in Preservation and Presentation of the Moving Image from the University of Amsterdam. She has worked on optical media preservation projects for Iowa University Libraries (as the Lenox Fellow) and for VIAA (now MEEMOO), a non-profit arm of the Flemish government. She has also completed media preservation projects for the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam and Cleveland State University.
In her fellowship application, Amanda expressed her enthusiasm for the opportunity: “I have been fascinated by the prospect of this Fellowship since the moment I knew that it existed. This Fellowship would allow me to exercise and expand upon my skill set within a collection that I’m already somewhat familiar with as a longtime WKSU listener.”
The Fellowship will begin in late summer 2022 and extend through Spring 2023. In August, the Fellow will travel to Philadelphia to attend Immersion Week, hosted by GBH Educational Foundation and George Blood LP (a leading provider of audiovisual preservation services). This 5-day training session will introduce the student to many aspects of media preservation and archiving and prepare them to work with archival audiovisual media.
Starting in September 2022 and continuing through the spring 2023 semester, the Fellow will work with staff from WKSU to inventory, assess, digitize, and catalog at least 60 hours of material from WKSU’s collections. As part of the fellowship, Gedeon will showcase her work with WKSU at the annual Association of Moving Image Archivists meeting in December and will also offer a workshop on the basics of audiovisual archiving to fellow MLIS students and alumni to share what she has learned with her iSchool colleagues and other information professionals.
As compensation, Ms. Gedeon will receive a regular stipend for her work and most travel expenses related to Immersion Week at GBH and the AMIA conference will be covered. Digitization activities will be supported by the School of Information, which will provide the required space and technologies to accomplish this work at its Digital Laboratory located in the Library building on campus.
In addition to training and financial compensation, the Fellow will receive additional support and mentoring from her Fellowship faculty advisor (Dr. Karen Gracy), and a collaborative support network consisting of GBH, all Fellowship students and programs, local advisors, and advisors from other leading organizations in the media archiving community such as the Association of Moving Image Archivists, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Bay Area Video Coalition). During her time as the PBPF Fellow, Ms. Gedeon will be working with Ideastream Chief Content Officer Mark Rosenberger, WKSU News Director Andrew Meyer, and WKSU Production Coordinator Joe Gunderman. Virginia Dressler, KSU’s Digital Projects Librarian, and Dr. Heather Soyka, Assistant Professor of Archival Studies for the School of Information, will also serve in an advisory capacity during the Fellowship.
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About ’s School of Information
The iSchool at has been creating leaders in the profession for more than 60 years. Our graduates are qualified to fill every conceivable role on the information spectrum — as library directors, knowledge managers, information architects, archivists, children's librarians, competitive research strategists, law librarians, health informatics experts, digital preservationists, usability analysts, museum collection specialists, network consultants, and more. Our MLIS program is ranked in the Top 20 of all U.S. library and information science programs by U.S. News and World Report, and we are pleased to have our archives specialty ranked #12. Please visit the School’s website for more information about the School’s programs, faculty and staff, and students.
About WKSU
WKSU is an award-winning NPR News and Classical Music public radio station serving more than 20 Ohio counties and parts of Western Pennsylvania. Day-to-day operations are managed by Ideastream Public Media. For more information on WKSU and Ideastream, visit and .
About GBH
GBH is America’s preeminent public media organization, the largest producer of PBS content for television and the Web and a major supplier of content for public radio and digital audio services. Established in 1951 and based in Boston, Massachusetts and, it holds the licenses to all of the PBS member stations in Massachusetts, and operates its flagship station WGBH-TV, sister station WGBX-TV, and a group of National Public Radio member stations in the state. For more information on GBH, please visit .