How To Help
I may be spearheading this effort to save American filmstrips, but this work was never meant to be completed by just one person. Here are a few ways you can help in the fight to save this part of America's forgotten cultural history:
Scanning and restoring this collection is slow work with the equipment that I have. Money covers better machines, more storage, and the time and effort it takes to catalog, preserve, and restore these films. It also helps keep the lights on, the internet bill paid, and allows me to continue working full-time to save this almost-lost media. Links to GoFundMe, Patreon, Venmo, and PayPal are all on my Donate page.
Most filmstrips have been thrown away, and the remaining ones are at risk. If you have any filmstrips and/or soundtrack records or cassettes you can donate for preservation, I'd love to save them. Please contact me and let me know what you can send.
Do you work for a media outlet or have a podcast? I'm happy to appear and talk about this quirky format and its plight. Do you work for a print publication? I'm happy to provide resources so you can write an article. Please contact me to set something up.
Are you on X, Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Mastodon? So am I, and I would be happy to keep you updated there. Additionally, many of these networks use algorithms that only show already-popular posts and personalities to more people. If you appreciate what I do, please comment on and share my posts on these platforms so they're shown to others who might be interested.
When I'm scanning filmstrips or digitizing media, I stream live from my home office on YouTube and Twitch. Viewers get to see freshly scanned frames as they come off the scanner, literally the first time most of this media has ever been digitized. Depending on what's in the queue, I may also be digitizing soundtrack records and cassettes, and you'll be among the first in many decades to hear them. You can watch by going to Twitch, where the stream will show automatically, or to my YouTube profile, where you can click the logo with the red "live" circle around it.
When I'm not in the office digitizing media, you can enjoy previous scans from my collections at the Internet Archive, and original ambient music.
The public database of educational filmstrips I have scanned and identified is the Internet Filmstrip Database at filmstrips.org. On this site you can see the information about all the filmstrips in my collection, information on filmstrips others have found, and links to scans on the Internet Archive and restored versions on the Internet Archive and YouTube.
Everybody has a side quest. Mine is hosting a weekly live show, Is This Anything?, where my audience and I look through VHS tapes for media that needs saving. It's a fun, loose escape from the real work of triaging forgotten film that might be too off-the-wall for stuffy archivist types. If you can handle that sort of heresy without bursting into flames, join me on Monday nights at 7pm Eastern on Twitch.
I have a merch shop where you can buy Uncommon Ephemera shirts, mugs, and other stuff. Rep the brand while supporting my mission to save forgotten media.
Last year I raised $6,000 of a $30,000 goal and drove for DoorDash to close some of the gap. That work is gone. I'm not eligible for grants or foundation money. A 9-to-5 would leave no time for this. Your donations are literally what allow the work to continue.