Thousands of hours of film in the National Archives will be available for purchase on DVD by the general public through a new program that partners the archive with CustomFlix Labs DVD on Demand, a division of Amazon.com. The discs would available for sale on Amazon.
The non-exclusive arrangement allows CustomFlix Labs Inc. to make digitized copies of the film holdings of the Archive, making it available in DVD form. The DVDs would sell for $19.99 on Amazon.com and will be manufactured on demand at CustomFlix’s facility in Scotts Valley, Calif. The National Archive would receive preservation copies of all digitized footage.
“While the public can come to our College Park, MD research room to view films and even copy them at no charge, this new program will make our holdings much more accessible to millions of people who cannot travel to the Washington, DC area,’’ said Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States in a press release. “CustomFlix Labs DVD on Demand will provide the National Archives with digital reference and preservation copies of the films that are sold on Amazon.com. This is an important contribution to our preservation program.”
The films in the National Archives range in subject matter from documentaries to newsreels, instructional films and combat footage.
The first batch of DVDs will consist of the Archive’s collection of Universal Newsreels, dating from 1920 to 1967.
