April 14, 2026 - Hollywood State University and the City of Los Angeles today announced a joint initiative to digitize, catalogue, and preserve rare archival materials documenting Hollywood's first century of filmmaking. The Hollywood Heritage Preservation Initiative will establish a publicly accessible digital archive housed at HSU's Scorsese Film and Media Library and managed in partnership with the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The initiative will focus initially on materials from the period between 1910 and 1960, including original production documents, correspondence, photographs, costume and set design records, and print materials from studios and production companies that no longer exist in their original form. An estimated 40,000 individual items are expected to be digitized in the first phase of the project.

"Hollywood is the cultural capital of the world and its history deserves the same preservation rigor we apply to any other great cultural institution," said Dr. Emily Carter, Dean of HSU's Film Studies Department and one of the nation's foremost film historians. "This archive will be a permanent public resource for researchers, filmmakers, educators, and anyone who wants to understand where this industry came from."

The initiative will create twelve full-time archival and research positions, eight of which will be filled by current HSU graduate students as part of the university's expanded experiential learning program. The digital archive is expected to launch in a limited public beta in early 2027.

The Hollywood Heritage Preservation Initiative is supported in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and a private gift from an anonymous donor.

Founded in 1923, Hollywood State University has a long history of educational advancement in entertainment arts and remains committed to shaping the future of the film, television, and media industries.