Open Vault is GBH Media Library and Archives’ digital archive website providing online access to unique and historically important content produced by GBH. Explore raw archival interviews, programs, and transcripts, search GBH’s vast catalog, and request digitization of content. The GBH archive is available for research on location at GBH. Research is open to the public by appointment in our Brighton, Mass. offices.
WGBH has been on the front lines of history for nearly seven decades. The station went on the air with a radio broadcast of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in October of 1951, and broadcast its first television program, “Come and See,” in May of 1955. The WGBH Media Library and Archives ensures the long-term preservation and access to WGBH’s vast archive of programming and original materials. The MLA makes WGBH’s historic materials accessible to producers, scholars, researchers, educators, students, lifelong learners and the public. The MLA also offers footage licensing. Research is open to the public by appointment in our Brighton, Mass. offices.
Explore Our Archives
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between GBH and the Library of Congress with a mission to coordinate a national effort to preserve at-risk public media content and provide a central web portal for access to the unique programming that public stations have created over the past 70+ years. To date, over 50,000 hours of television and radio programming from more than 100 public media organizations and archives across the United States have been digitized. The entire collection is available on location at the Library of Congress and GBH, and more than 30,000 items are available online.
Boston TV News Digital Library
Discover GBH's news archive in the Boston TV News Digital Library, a collaboration between GBH, the Boston Public Library, Cambridge Community Television, and Northeast Historic Film. The Boston TV News Digital Library makes available local news stories produced in and about Boston from 1960 to 2000. Nearly 2,000 news programs are available online.
Stock Sales and Licensing
GBH Stock Sales is the clip licensing division of the GBH Media Library and Archives. Stock Sales licenses originally shot GBH footage and web content to television producers, publishers and professional media organizations. On the GBH Stock Sales and Licensing website, producers and filmmakers can search rights-ready clips and discover additional material available for licensing by GBH.
Additional Information and Updates
Follow us on social media
Media Library and Archives
Twitter: @Wgbharchive
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Twitter: @amarchivepub
Facebook: @amarchivepub
Visit our blog
A blog of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, a collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress.