The Library of Congress has over 160 1 chiliad m items inwards its collection , including 23 1 chiliad m books , too to a greater extent than than 1.1 1 chiliad m films , too boob tube programs ranging from motion pictures made inwards the 1890s to today's TV programs. It has the master photographic boob tube camera negatives of 1903’s The Great Train Robbery too Victor Fleming’s Gone With The Wind. It fifty-fifty has all the sequels of Scary Movie too modern hitting TV shows such as Judge Judy. The library also holds nearly 3.5 1 chiliad m good recordings of populace radio broadcasts too music , representing over a hundred years of good recording history. It has films too good on nearly all formats , from cylinders to magnetic tapes to CDs. It’s the Noah’s Ark of the creative history of the United States.
Most of the library’s good too video collections are stored inwards a Cold War bunker at the foothills of Blue Ridge Mountains inwards Culpeper , Virginia. Known equally the Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center , it is the Library of Congress's latest audiovisual archive storage facility.
The Packard Campus of the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. Photo credit: Rien van Rijthoven
The Packard Campus was originally built inwards 1969 equally a high-security storage facility where the Federal Reserve Board stored $3 billion inwards cash , too hence that it could replenish the cash furnish due east of the Mississippi River inwards the effect of a catastrophic nation of war alongside the Soviet Union. Like almost nuclear bunkers built during the Cold War menstruum , the radiation-hardened Packard Campus was constructed of steel-reinforced concrete 1 human foot thick , had lead-lined shutters too was surrounded dirt strips too barbed-wire fences. The bunker could also family upward to 540 people for a month. It had beds too freeze-dried nutrient , an incinerator , indoor pistol hit , a helicopter landing pad too a cold-storage surface area for bodies awaiting burial inwards illustration radiations levels were likewise high to become outside.
After the Cold War ended , the bunker was decommissioned too sat abandoned for 4 years earlier it was purchased past times the David too Lucile Packard Foundation on behalf of the Library of Congress. Nearly $240 1 chiliad m was spent transforming the bunker into a state-of-the-art storage facility alongside to a greater extent than than ninety miles of shelving for collections storage , 35 climate controlled vaults for good recording , security celluloid , too videotape , too 124 nitrate celluloid vaults.
The facility houses 6.3 1 chiliad m collection items including all video too good , equally good equally 2.1 1 chiliad m supporting scripts , posters , photos , etc. Its digital archive exceeds 1 1 chiliad m gigabytes. An astounding 22 ,000 novel items published inwards the U.S. brand it every 24-hour interval at the Library , out of which an average of 10 ,000 items are added per day.
The Packard Campus regularly holds (nearly everyday) screenings of films of cultural significance inwards its 206 topographic point home , which is opened upward to the public.
Photo credit: www.greenroofs.com
Storage vaults at Packard Campus. Photo credit: Rien van Rijthoven
Vintage media equipment at Packard Campus. Photo credit: Leslie Johnston/Flickr
Vintage media equipment at Packard Campus. Photo credit: Leslie Johnston/Flickr
The home where populace screenings accept place. Photo credit: Rien van Rijthoven
Sources: www.loc.gov / Wikipedia / www.aoc.gov / Wired / Washingtonian