September 24, 2026

Uncommon Ephemera to Open Hundreds of Donated Filmstrips Live on September 30

Mark O'Brien will open boxes of filmstrips and soundtracks sent in after The New York Times featured the project, live on YouTube and Twitch

JOHNSON CITY, NY - September 24, 2026 - Uncommon Ephemera will open the latest filmstrip donations to its preservation initiative live on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at 7 p.m. EDT. Founder Mark O'Brien and his wife, known online as "Mrs. Ephemera," will unpack at least five boxes of filmstrips, some of which are still in their original packaging and including their synchronized soundtracks on record and cassette, donated after The New York Times featured the project's preservation work on September 4. The stream is free to watch on YouTube and Twitch, and viewers can react, ask questions, and comment in chat as each box is opened and its contents browsed.

The boxes hold hundreds of filmstrips, a 35mm film-based multimedia format used in schools, business, and industry for education, entertainment, and training in the twentieth century. While a thriving community of archivists, preservationists and retro media fans celebrates VHS, vinyl, 16mm and feature films, filmstrips as a format have been largely overlooked. Opening these donations on camera lets viewers partake in the enjoyment O'Brien and his wife find in saving historical and cultural artifacts that would otherwise be lost in attics, storage units, and landfills. The O'Briens will provide reactions, commentary, and information about the filmstrips and publishers as they inspect the donations.

O'Brien is also negotiating to pick up another large donation of filmstrips in Pittsburgh, PA, the weekend before the event. If this happens, there may be hundreds more items to browse during the event, and it may result in additional live events being added to give them all the attention they deserve.

"Somehow, in a worldwide community of people interested in recording and celebrating the American 20th century, this entire format got forgotten," O'Brien says from his home office in upstate New York. "I'm happy to have the Times and others raising awareness about this overlooked media and the efforts to save it, because it helps the people who saved these forgotten filmstrips find someone who can save them."

After the event, every title will go through the archive's usual process. Each one is cataloged in The Internet Filmstrip Database, the only public record of titles released on the format. Then each filmstrip will be scanned at high resolution, its soundtrack audio digitized, and the digital copies published for free on the Internet Archive. This archive work will also be streamed on O'Brien's "office streams" on YouTube and Twitch, where viewers can watch as film is scanned, audio is digitized, and materials are cataloged. Almost 5,000 filmstrips are now cataloged, and roughly 1,800 have been scanned.

About Uncommon Ephemera

Uncommon Ephemera is a media preservation initiative focused on saving American educational and industrial filmstrips. All preserved materials are made freely available through the Internet Archive, and a growing collection of information about the titles released on the format is being built at its sister project The Internet Filmstrip Database. For more information, visit uncommonephemera.org.

Links:

Media Contact:

Mark O'Brien
[email protected]