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Audiovisual heritage lab under Lincoln Center races to save a century of sound and film

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Audiovisual heritage engineers in a basement beneath Lincoln Center in New York are racing to save more than a century of film, tape, discs and cylinders before the formats decay, UN News reported on 18 October 2026. “I tell my kids I work in a time machine,” said Rhony Dostaly, a media preservation engineer at the New York Public Library (NYPL). The UN marks World Day for Audiovisual Heritage on 27 October.

audiovisual heritage: Media preservation work featured in UN News coverage of the NYPL lab
Media preservation work featured in UN News coverage of the NYPL lab Photo: UN News/Evgeniya Kleshcheva (editorial use with credit).

How the audiovisual heritage lab rescues fragile media

The lab is part of NYPL’s Digital Collections Operations, and most material will be open to anyone with a library card once digitised. “The tapes and the decks are no longer being manufactured, but the history needs to be preserved,” said lab manager Shahed Dowlatshahi. Acetate film suffers from “vinegar syndrome”, a chemical decay that leaves it brittle and warped. “You can slow it down with cold storage, but it will never reverse,” said coordinator Casey McNamara. Audiotape arrives crinkled or stuck and is repaired by hand, which engineer Victoria Fajardo compared to surgery. Even Digital Betacam cassettes now shed, said Francis Dougherty, who built the video lab: “Every year physical media degrades.”

Key Facts

  • Lab: New York Public Library under Lincoln Center
  • UN day: World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, 27 Oct
  • Story date: 18 Oct 2026 (UN News)
  • Access: most digitised items via library card
  • Formats: film, tape, discs, cylinders

New York Public Library: Harry Belafonte reels and Bharata Natyam film checks

Dostaly has watched decades of family films shot by singer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Harry Belafonte, and footage of Malcolm X’s travels, including Mecca, moved him most. McNamara checks reels frame by frame for tears and shrinkage; on one white leader she had written “BHARATA NATYAM”, the Indian classical dance form. Engineer Jeffrey Willens played a 16-inch disc, A Year To Remember, made by the UN Radio Division for New Year’s Day 1949, when the UN was based at Lake Success on Long Island. Engineers are also digitising the archive of filmmaker William Greaves, whose 2001 film tells the story of Ralph Bunche, who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize and was the first Black Nobel laureate.

Why the UN marks audiovisual heritage each October

World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, marked on 27 October, is meant to highlight and support work like the NYPL lab’s, UN News said. Time is against the archivists. “The machines are getting rarer,” Dougherty said. “The old men who repair the machines are getting even rarer.” Asked how urgent the work is, he said it should have been dealt with 20 years ago. Universities train young specialists, but there are fewer machines to learn on. Some tools are built by hand: the turntable that played the UN disc was made by California engineer Nick Bergh, and its microscope lets staff check record grooves for scratches.

Why It Matters: When playback machines disappear, only digitisation labs can keep a century of sound and film alive for the public.

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Source: UN News, 18 Oct 2026 · UNESCO: World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

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