Donate Home Movies or Other Moving Images

If you have home movies, videocassettes, or other unique moving images that document events in Maryland history or the lives of Marylanders, please consider donating them to us.  We are interested in materials:

1. That document Marylanders' participation in events in local and national history, such as wars, the civil rights movement, natural disasters, and the opening of the Bay Bridge, in such everyday activities as workplaces, home-based activities, recreation, and holiday celebrations.

2. That are the original or a second-generation copy, because otherwise the quality probably will not be good enough for reproduction.

3. That have identifiable people, events, places, and/or time periods.  Unidentified footage will not have much archival value.

4. For which intellectual property rights may be transferred to the MdHS.  For future preservation efforts, it is important that we actually own the rights to the material.  We also need to own the rights for the purpose of displaying the material in exhibits, documentaries, or other public forms; providing reproductions to others; and granting permission to others to use the materials in exhibits, documentaries, or other public forms.  Please see the National Film Preservation Board's excellent "Depositing Film with Archives: A Guide to the Legal Issues" for further information. 

If there are home movies you would like to donate, please contact David Angerhofer at (410) 685-3750, ext. 378, or special_collections@mdhs.org.  Please do not send originals to us without contacting us first!

It would be great if you would donate some money along with your home movies.  A donation of $75 to $100 per hour of movies you give us would help us purchase archival storage materials for them and would assist us in raising the money to digitize and catalog them, ensuring they survive and are accessible for years to come.