www.prelinger.com

Welcome to Rick Prelinger and Prelinger Archives' almost-all-text website. This site contains both current and historical information; current information is at the top of this page.

In search of archival or stock footage? Please look at our Archives FAQ here first.

Rick Prelinger (brief biography)
Rick Prelinger is an archivist, filmmaker, writer and educator. He began collecting "ephemeral films" (films made for specific purposes at specific times, such as advertising, educational and industrial films; more recently called "useful cinema ") in 1983. His collection of 60,000 films was acquired by Library of Congress in 2002, and since that time Prelinger Archives has again grown to include some 30,000 home movies and 7,000 other film items. Beginning in 2000, he partnered with Internet Archive to make a subset of the Prelinger Collection (now over 9,000 films) available online for free viewing, downloading and reuse. His archival feature Panorama Ephemera (2004) played in venues around the world, and his feature project No More Road Trips? received a Creative Capital grant in 2012. His 30 Lost Landscapes participatory urban history projects have played to many thousands of viewers in San Francisco, Detroit, Oakland, Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere. He is a board member of Internet Archive and frequently writes and speaks on the future of archives. With Megan Prelinger, he co-founded Prelinger Library in 2004. He is currently Emerit Professor of Film & Digital Media at University of California, Santa Cruz.

Rick and Megan currently co-direct Prelinger Archives, which is currently in the midst of a project to mass-digitize archival film, funded by Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web. Since early 2023, the project has so far scanned some 4,000 films and will continue doing so until at least August 2025. Newly digitized films are available at Internet Archive and YouTube.

Many of my films are viewable online. Here's a list, from oldest to newest:

Useful Prophecies: An Archival Compilation, made for the opening night of the Punto De Vista Festival, (Pamplona/Iruñea), March 11, 2019

My essay "Archives of Inconvenience" appears in the new (August 2019) volume of the In Search of Media series, a collaboration between Meson Press and University of Minnesota Press. Link to open-access PDF and ordering information for print version.

Some of my recent lectures and presentations are here.

A full CV/resume is here.

Prelinger Archives is now a collection consisting of approximately 30,000 home movies; 3,000 "useful" films (advertising, educational and industrial films); and several thousand cans of miscellaneous unedited footage. Most material that has been digitized is available online.

8,982 films from Prelinger Archives are online at the Internet Archive. More are frequently added.

Prelinger Archives actively collects home movie material (35mm, 16mm, Super 8, 8mm and other film formats) and is pleased to connect with families and individuals who may have materials to donate to the archives. We can be reached via email at the address at the bottom of this page.

Access to Prelinger Archives
We are committed to providing public access to our digital film materials. Over 9,000 films are available for viewing, downloading and (in many cases) reuse from Internet Archive. Reuse is allowed pursuant to the Creative Commons license (if any) shown on the film's detail page. Creative Commons-licensed material is available for reuse without any charge, and no permission is required.

If you wish highest-quality material to use in a film, television program or other media project, or if you require a written license agreement, please contact prelingerclips@gmail.com.

Prelinger Library, co-founded with Megan Prelinger in 2004, is an appropriation-friendly collection of books, periodicals and print ephemera, open to the public in downtown San Francisco.

The following pages are included for historical interest (2001-2015)

Blackoystercatcher blog (presently inactive)

Upcoming Events (not current, shown for historical value)

View or download Panorama Ephemera (2004), a feature-length collage film

News of Panorama Ephemera

My "Points of Origin" piece, published in The Moving Image 9 (No. 2, 2009) here:

Prelinger Collection Acquired by Library of Congress

My spouse Megan Shaw Prelinger's website

What's New (updated 14 July 2004; my blog is much more current)

Archives FAQ (updated September 2023)
Approximately 9,000 Prelinger titles presently available for free viewing and downloading from Internet Archive.
Projects
Writing
Publicity
Access to Products
Intellectual Property Issues
About Ephemeral Films
Links

Watch the Prelinger Archives official orientation video:

The work referred to below is in the Public Domain.

View or download This Is Prelinger Archives (2001)
Producer: Prelinger (Rick)
Sponsor: Prelinger Archives
Official Prelinger Archives corporate video, describing its contents and mission. With excerpts of many films in the collection and rare scenes shot inside the New York vaults.
Descriptors: Motion pictures: Ephemeral;  Motion pictures: Archives;  Prelinger Archives
Run time: 10:45   Color/B&W: B&W/C   Silent/Sound: Sd

Contact information:
Rick Prelinger
Prelinger Archives
P.O. Box 590622
San Francisco, CA 94159-0622
USA
prelingerclips@gmail.com

January 16, 2024

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