Karen Cariani has over 30 years of experience in public media and has worked to make historical media materials more accessible through her roles at WGBH. She helped establish WGBH's media library and archives and oversaw the digitization of over 40,000 hours of content. Currently, she directs the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in partnership with the Library of Congress to preserve public media and make it available online.

1. Karen Cariani
Senior Director
WGBH Media Library and Archives
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
WGBH, One Guest St, Boston, MA 02135
Summary
I have worked in public media for 30 years and have gained expertise in media production, research,
copyright issues, and digital preservation. I pursued this career because of my passion for education and the use
of visual and media materials to inform, inspire, and educate. During this time, technology has evolved enabling
the creation of digital libraries, archives, and educational resources that can now be widely distributed, allowing
better access to unique materials. I am committed and inspired to push new technology to its limits to
accomplish the goal of making historical cultural materials more available for public use.
Experience
Sept 2007 – present Senior Director, WGBH Media Library and Archives
Sept 2013 – present Director, American Archive of Public Broadcasting
1990 - 2007 Director, WGBH Media Library
Department development, management, and strategic planning
• The MLA establishes the policies and procedures for access, acquisition, intellectual control,
circulation, and preservation of WGBH’s physical media, digital production and administrative resources.
WGBH Archives holds over 750,000 items. Most of the collection is audiovisual materials created for WGBH’s
TV and radio programs from 1951 through the present. The master level materials are kept in a temperature and
humidity controlled vault with fire suppression.
• Manage a staff of 12-15 and report directly to General Counsel and VP Legal and Business Affairs.
The MLA has been repeatedly highlighted by the WGBH employee survey as one of the most responsive,
helpful and valued departments at WGBH. It is internationally known by other audiovisual archives and often
mentioned as a standard of best practices. I manage a discretionary budget of about $1.4 million. Over the past 8
years, I have raised an additional $8-10 million for restricted grant projects listed below.
• Organized the department into strategic focused services:
Archive services –circulation, physical storage management, preservation
Library services –database oversight, research and rights clearances
Digital Archive – DAM system oversight
Compliance – accessioning, shut down
Stock Sales - revenue generating, licensing to outside producers
Open Vault and public access projects
• Originated the WGBH Media Library to organize WGBH production materials for efficient access
both during and after production and systematically collect descriptive metadata. This material is the basis of
the WGBH Media Library and Archives. Working with production units, I developed database formats to gather
descriptive data, workflows for archiving materials, and policies for access. The Media Library was merged
with the Archives and I became director of both. With more digital production, the MLA is implementing an
open source Digital Asset Management System to retain, access, and preserve digital materials and electronic
records. We are now working with Hydra technology stack to build a sustainable system. Long term digital
preservation is an ongoing concern and a challenge to be resolved.

2. • Oversaw development of website for WGBH MLA to allow public access to materials in the archive.
Worked with legal department to overcome rights issues for public access. Worked with WGBH Digital
department to develop look, design, functionality, and features based on feedback from scholars and
researchers. Open Vault (http://openvault.wgbh.org) has over 100,000 unique visitors annually.
Director American Archive of Public Broadcasting
• The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration with the Library of Congress
with a mission to preserve and make accessible significant historical content created by public media, and to
coordinate a national effort to save at-risk public media before its content is lost to posterity.
• Overseeing the project to manage 40,000 hours of digital media for the initial collection, and
developing future growth. Developing strategies to allow access to the public via the website.
• Oversee the WGBH staff and activities related to the AAPB in co-ordination with the Library of
Congress. Developing a sustainability plan for the initiative and managing an advisory council.
• Director of three current projects for AAPB – IMLS funded NDSR fellowship project, CLIR funded
National Educational Television catalog project, and IMLS funded Improving Access to Time-Based Media
through Crowdsourcing & Machine Learning. (for more information see http://americanarchive.org/about-the-
american-archive/projects)
Project Director/project management, project fundraising 2001-present
One of my goals for the department is to find opportunities to allow access to the WGBH archive for
educational use and wider audiences. I strategically looked for outside funding to reach these goals. I developed
project ideas, wrote many successful grant proposals, and managed projects that have funded our efforts for the
continued development and build of Open Vault, our website (http://openvault.wgbh.org/)
• 2001-2007, Project Director for the Teachers Domain collections on Life Science, Physical Science
and Earth and Space Science funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Science Digital
Library (NSDL) project and for the civil rights collection funded by the Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS). Helped conceive and develop the basic structure, work flow and concept for Teachers
Domain. Specifically helped develop solutions and resolve issues to accommodate use of materials from the
WGBH archive in an on-line K-12 classroom focus digital library. Teachers Domain is now PBS Learning
Media and is an online educational service and multi-media digital library of classroom-ready resources for use
in lessons or independent study. I have overseen focus groups to assess need in the educational community, the
build of resources for the collection, the development of the correlation of state and national education
standards to our resources, and rights clearances.
• Overseen rights clearances for a Hewlett Foundation funded project to offer open content on Teachers
Domain. Helped develop different levels of licensing to accommodate different rights constraints.
• Project Director for an IMLS grant to develop an on-line collection of material from the WGBH
Archive called Open Vault. This project took three previously built stand-alone finding aids and combined them
into one website with cross searching. Also added interview materials from War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
as a test on how to handle interview material for a future project.
• Project Director for a second IMLS grant awarded to add Vietnam series film materials to Open Vault.
This project was a collaborative project between WGBH, Columbia University and University of Massachusetts
and internally with the WGBH Interactive Department. The collection has a targeted audience of professors and
scholars for class use and life-long learners in the general public. The collection is primarily video materials
organized by themes with search functions for educators find.
• Co-director/director of three grants awarded from the Mellon Foundation to assess the educational
value of the WGBH collection and one to build a prototype using Fedora as a digital repository to deliver media

3. materials to scholars. Features added to Open Vault included faceted search, ability to annotate and tag video or
stills, searchable text transcripts synced with videos. Third project called Participatory Cataloging, involved
posting the WGBH catalog of titles on-line, working directly with scholars to create scholar collections from the
WGBH Archive, and encourage discoverability and use of the archive by utilizing data created by scholars to
enhance the catalog.
• Co-director of a CPB grant for continued development of the PBCore metadata standard.
• Project Director for CPB funded American Archive Content Inventory Project to inventory all public
media (tv and radio) in the US. MLA also participated in the CPB American Archive initiative pilot project.
• Project Director for IMLS and CLIR funded project Boston Local TV News Digital Library: 1960-
2000. Project was a collaboration between WGBH, BPL, NHF, and CCTV.
• Project Director for NEH funded project to digitize all 252 interviews from WGBH’s War and Peace in
the Nuclear Age and add to Open Vault.
• Director NEH funded project to build an open source based digital asset management system for media
preservation. Plan to use the Hydra-Blacklight-Fedora technology stack. Second related project with Indiana
University currently underway. Serve as Hydra Partner and active in Hydra community. Serve on Avalon
project advisory board for Indiana University.
Production
In addition and previously, was Director of Archival research on the series American Experience: The Kennedys
and MacArthur, and the award winning 10 part series Rock and Roll.
1983-1990 Assistant Unit Manager, Production Assistant, Associate Producer, Post Production Supervisor,
and Director of Archival Research for WGBH, Long Bow Group, Panoptic Films – UK. Worked on various
award winning, multi-part historical productions for WGBH including South Africa Under the Gun, Crisis in
Central America, Mexico, Korea: The Unknown War, The American Experience: Nixon, and War and Peace in
the Nuclear Age, in addition to American Power for Panoptic Films/Channel 4 in the UK, and The Gate of
Heavenly Peace for the Long Bow Group.
1983 Intern, WGBH American Playhouse production Concealed Enemies
1983-1986 DJ at WBRS radio station. Managed live studio performances of local bands.
1981-1983 Research Assistant, Brandeis University, Neurogentics Lab
Education ScB Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI
Websites:
Open Vault (undergoing overhaul): http://openvault.wgbh.org
Boston Local TV News: http://bostonlocaltv.org
American Archive of Public Broadcasting: http://americanarchive.org
WGBH Stock Sales (under new construction): http://www.wgbhstocksales.org
Professional Affiliations
• Serve on Advisory board for Henry Hampton Collection at Washington University, St Louis
• Attended NSDL-DELOS Summer School on Building Digital Libraries

4. • Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), Board of Directors 2001-2005, elected Vice President by
the board 2002-2004, active member since 1991
• AMIA rep on National Television and Video Preservation Foundation (NTVPF) board 2003-2006
• Co-chair of the AMIA Local Television Project (project awarded an NHPRC grant for 2001-2004)
• Member/former member of following AMIA committees and interest groups: Digital Issues Committee; the
Moving Image Gateway project; News, Documentary and Television interest group (former chair); Election
Committee; Strategic Plan Initiative Task Force; (former co-chair) AMIA Copyright Interest Group; former
co-chair and co-originator of AMIA Open Source Committee
• Member of: ARSC, AMIA, SAA, ALA, NEA
• Curated webinar series: “Hot Topics: DuraSpace Community Webinar Series, Managing and preserving
audio and video in your digital repository
• Former co-Chair of LOC NDSA Infrastructure working group
• President/Member/Vice President/Past president of Digital Commonwealth Executive Committee
• Serving on NEDCC Advisory Council
Presentations: on issues of cataloguing, access, copyright, and the impact of new technologies:
• 2015 Open Repositories, Hydra Connect, Visible Evidence, ARSC, SAA, IASA, FIAT, AMIA
• 2014 AMIA, SAA, SCMS, Orphans Symposium
• 2013 Open Repositories, AMIA, NEA, Digital Commonwealth
• 5/12 Screening the Future master class
• 5/12 Digital Commonwealth: The Boston TV News Digital Library: 1960-2000
• 11/11 AMIA: American Archive Content Inventory project
• 10/11 New England Archivists: Television Archives in Research, Higher Ed, and K-12 Classrooms: 3
Projects from WGBH
• 9/11 FIAT: Working with Users to Improve On-line Access to Public Broadcasting Archives
• 4/11 Digital Commonwealth: Born Digital
• 4/11 NERCOMP: Open Vault
• 11/10 AMIA/IASA conference chaired/presented: Getting a Piece of the Pie- Grant Funding Activities
for Moving Image and Sound Archives
• 11/10 AMIA:Opening the Archives for Access: Understanding Copyright Barriers
• 2/10 Northeastern University: Graduate level class on Practical Management of a Media Archive
• 11/09 AMIA conference panel chaired: Evolving Content: Workflow, Technology, Audience, and
Sustainability in WGBH Digital Projects and
• 11/09 AMIA conference panel chaired: Digital Durability and Digital Access: PrestoPRIME and
Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
• 9/09 IASA: presented NDIIPP project poster for: Preserving Digital Public Television
• 9/09 LOC Digital News workshop: Boston Local News Digital Library Collaboration
• 11/08 AMIA: Archives On-line
• 11/07 Hewlett Foundation: Opening Our Television Archives
• 11/07 NSDL: Teachers Domain Pathways Open Education Resources
• 10/06 AMIA: Thematic Access to a Video Based Digital Library
• 8/06 MERLOT conference: presented Evolution digital library website
• 2/06 IMLS Webwise: Developing Thematic Access to a Video Based Digital Library
• 11/05 MCN: Adding Educational Value to Online Collections: Examples from the NSDL Effort
• 4/05 NEA: From Project to Program
• 7/04 SAA: Tackling Copyright in Visual Materials
• 10/03 NSF/NSDL annual all projects meeting break out session : Building Collections – Managing the
Content of Your Collection
• 12/02 NSF/NSDL annual all projects meeting Teachers Domain poster session

5. • 11/02 AMIA: Using the Internet for distribution
• 2/02 IMLS Web Wise: Teachers Domain
• 12/98 AMIA: Words and Pictures: shot level indexing
• 10/97 AMIA: The Commercialization of an Archive
• 10/2/94 CD-Rom Expo: Archival sources
• 6/20/94 Radcliffe: Moving Image Materials – Building an Institutional Collection