UCSB Library hosts “From the Airwaves to Archives”
Tracy Lehr
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) The University of California, Santa Barbara is now home to KEYT archives that everyone can see for free.
UCSB hosted a panel discussion entitled, “From Airwaves to Archives: Celebrating the Legacy of Santa Barbara’s Local Television Station.”
Organizers honored longtime videographer Herb Tuyay, who was instrumental in sharing 30,000 hours of footage dating back decades.
Tuyay made a call to UCSB Professor Emeritus Dan Driskel who got the transfer underway prior to the pandemic and his retirement.
“We ended up with everything ’60s, ’70s early ’80s when it went to videotape, this was video tape I think tonight, but there is so much more that goes on in the 16 mm years and we started putting it together in 2016,” said Driskel, referring to a 3 minutes sizzle reel shown to the audience.
News Channel 3-12 General Manager Jim Lemon moderated a panel discussion with former KEYT and CNN anchor/ reporter Paul Vercammen, Senior Reporter John Palminteri and weekend anchor and nightside reporter Tracy Lehr.
Former colleagues in the audience also took part including Paula Lopez, and Michael Bolton.
Numerous local journalists including Jerry Roberts and Lisa Osborne were on hand as well.
University Librarian Todd Grappone helped welcome the guests.
Film and TV Curator Laura Treat Liebhabor talked about the painstaking task of transferring every minute of broadcasting from old tapes.
“So all of the material that we digitize from KEYT archives is available for free to anyone who wants to view them on streaming media,” said Liebhabor.
Jessica Law, the Associate Director of Development at UCSB Library said they are hoping to raise money to keep going as they have a lot of years to cover.
“We’ve already sunk a lot of our own resources into making sure we get at least 20 percent of the archive digitized, so that’s where we are moving from out here and how we can continue to help all the different formats that you have available at KEYT to digitize those,” said Law.
People who have been interviewed or played sports that KEYT covered can look for themselves in many of the clips.
For a link to the video dating back decades search KEYT Television News Tape Library by visiting https://library.ucsb.edu