Harvard University staff discussed on Apr. 3 the difficulties they face in preserving their extensive collection of VHS tapes, as the technology approaches obsolescence and its magnetic tape continues to degrade. Archivists, curators, and conservators are working to digitize these materials before valuable content is lost.
The preservation of VHS tapes matters because they document important cultural moments and serve as primary resources for scholarship and research. Many of Harvard’s holdings include unique footage from social movements, oral histories, art projects, and notable figures.
Joanne Donovan, lead archivist for visual materials at the Schlesinger Library at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, said: “Digitization is very much a priority, considering how ephemeral this format is. There’s not as much information available about the history of women, and women of color in particular. There’s a risk of it being lost.” The Schlesinger Library holds about 5,000 VHS tapes related to American women’s lives; only about a quarter have been digitized so far.
The process is complicated by physical deterioration such as sticky shed syndrome—a condition where tape layers stick together—making playback risky. Kaylie Ackerman from Harvard’s Media Preservation Lab explained that baking the tapes at controlled temperatures can temporarily restore them enough for one final digital transfer: “If you can bake the tape at a particular temperature for a particular amount of time, you can temporarily re-cure the material for long enough to get a good preservation transfer.” She added: “The reason we digitize it is that otherwise it would just disappear… It’s important for Harvard to not only have the material but preserve it so that in 150 years a new scholar can still work with it as a primary resource.”
Lynette Roth from Harvard Art Museums highlighted how artists like Joseph Beuys embraced video cassettes as democratizing media: “It was a way to make art more accessible and less elitist compared with traditional media.” However, she noted that video artworks were often underrepresented due to concerns over wear during use.
Efforts continue across various departments at Harvard—including climate-controlled storage vaults and specialized shipping procedures—to save what remains on aging VHS tapes before it’s too late.
