1894-1912: Library of Congress accepts the deposit of paper prints, or photographs printed on paper rolls, for the purpose of copyright registration.
1912: New legislation on copyright permits the deposit of motion pictures as its own distinct art form. The Library of Congress discontinues its practice of accepting paper prints and permits descriptive written documentation on films (returning inherently flammable nitrate prints back to claimants) for the purpose of copyright registration.
1927: Al Jolson appears in The Jazz Singer, signaling the demise of the silent film era, and eventually upwards to 90 percent of the films produced during the period.
1933: Bengt Idestam Almquist establishes the first film archives in Stockholm, Sweden.
1933: The British Film Institute is established "to encourage the development of the art of the film, to promote its use as a record of contemporary life and manners, and to foster public appreciation and study of it from these points of view."
1935: Ernst Lindgren is named the first director of the British Film Institute. Although Lindgren believed that every film had historic and cultural significance, he was unable to secure the funding to promote such an ambitious edict. Lindgren was forced to be very selective in his acquisitions and placed his priorities on the preservation and conservation of the collection.
1935: The Museum of Modern Art Film Library in New York is founded, with Iris Barry named as its first curator. Under Barry's direction, the museum's emphasis is in preserving films produced by the motion picture industry that she considered great works of art.
1935: Henri Langlois, a private collector, establishes the Cinémathèque Françaises, which would serve as a model for the popularity of the cinémathèque as an important cultural institution. Funding for the Cinémathèque received from the French government for the international collection was chiefly allocated to public screenings and museum exhibitions, rather than towards the dedicated preservation of French national cinema. Little care was taken to actually conserve the collection, which was stored in inadequate storage facilities. As a result, a large number of films under Langlois' watch were lost due to neglect and as a result of two major fires.
1938: The Cinémathèque Françaises, the Museum of Modern Art Film Library, the National Film Library of the British Film Institute, and the Reichsfilmarchiv in Berlin establish the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF).
1942: The Library of Congress resumes acquiring moving images for selected works considered historically significant.
1950: Acetate-based "safety" film is introduced, which replaces the highly flammable cellulose nitrate-based stock. Eastman Color film is also introduced, but is not a preservation medium. As a result, color films using the process would begin to fade over time.
1952-1953: Kemp Niver develops the Renovate Process which makes possible the restoration of the Library of Congress paper print collection. Niver copies the paper prints onto 16mm reversal film, creates a dupe negative for the Library of Congress and retains the 16mm original master.
1953: Howard Walls compiles the first volume of the Library of Congress' motion picture copyright records: Motion Pictures 1894-1912 Identified from the records of the United States Copyright Office.
1965: The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (ATAS) consolidates its archive of television output from the three major U.S. networks and houses its collection at the recently established film and television archive at UCLA.
1967: The American Film Institute (AFI) is created to advance the recognition of film as art form, and supported with funds by the National Endowment for the Arts. The archival program is devised in collaboration with the Library of Congress. The Library stores and preserves the films, while the AFI acquires films on loan or deposit, raises funds for their preservation, and then works in cooperation with established archives.
1967-1975: Between 1967-1971, CBS President William S. Paley commissions an investigation into the feasibility of establishing a master collection of documents representing the history of radio and television. The National Library of Television at UCLA conducts a general survey in 1972 of television collections residing in over 200 U.S. institutions. In 1974, AFI succeeds in securing funding for television preservation from the Ford Foundation. By 1975, television preservation activities are occurring at UCLA, Broadcast Pioneers Library, University of Wisconsin, University of Georgia, Wesleyan University, and the National Archives.
1975: The film restoration movement begins in the U.S. with the restoration of Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon."
1976: The Copyright Revision Act includes a provision to create an American Television and Radio Archives at the Library of Congress.
1976: William S. Paley establishes the Museum of Broadcasting designed to collect, preserve, and showcase to the public representative samples of U.S. and international television programming.
1978: The archives of the major television networks worldwide establishes the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT).
1980s: Film director Martin Scorsese initiates a campaign addressing the problem of color fading in motion picture films. The campaign advances public support for film preservation activities. By 1990, Scorcese establishes the Film Foundation with seven other filmmakers committed to the social, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of motion pictures.
1980-1981: Kevin Brownlow showcases the restored version of Abel Gance's 1927 feature, "Napoléon" to audiences worldwide. The outing signals international recognition to the modern film restoration movement.
1984-1987: In 1984, "Colorization," the generic term for the electronic coloring of black-and-white films, is presented to shareholders in a demonstration tape. Initial reaction to the process is positive, but then a number of objections are voiced by many inside the industry. The Directors Guild (DGA) soon organizes a boycott of sponsors promoting the television presentation of colorized features. The American Film Institute issues a position statement in 1986 opposing the process stating that "it is the ethical responsibility of the copyright holders to protect and preserve the artistic integrity of black and white films." In 1987, the DGA testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on Technology and the Law. Although colorization does not impact the physical alteration of film, what the controversy did do for the cause of film preservation was to bring the issue into the public arena. In order to colorize a film, the best possible black and white print of the work must be made, which is then transferred to a one-inch videotape. It is from the videotape that the process is completed. Since the best possible elements were required for the process, colorization arguably helped the preservation of the subject being colorized.
1988: The National Film Registry is established prompted over the colorization debate. As approved by a House-Senate Committee in August 1988, the bill permitted the inclusion of 25 films a year as worthy of protection through its listing. If one of the films selected was altered, a disclaimer label was required indicating that the alteration was made without the participation of the film's creators.
1991: Eastman Kodak reveals that with inadequate storage, safety film is subject to deterioration and may have a shorter life span than nitrate.
1991: The Association of Moving Image Archivists' (AMIA) is founded, opening its membership to individual archivists' rather than solely to institutions.
1991: The Association of Film Archivists' of the European Union (ACCE) is founded as a means to lobby for funding and to support the development of film preservation and access to film resources.
1993: The Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board brings together the film community to study the state of American film preservation. The resulting Film Preservation 1993 sets American public policy for film preservation over the next decade.
1994: Redefining Film Preservation: a National Plan is released. In the introduction, the Librarian of Congress writes, “A common thread in the public testimony and written submissions … is that, with the single exception of the Hollywood sound feature, large facets of American film production are seriously neglected by current preservation efforts, notably the vast majority of newsreels, documentaries, independent features, and avant-garde works.”
1996: The National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) is established, a nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America's film heritage.
1996: The Southeast Asia-Pacific Audiovisual Archives Association (SEAPAVAA) is founded with objectives similar to FIAF.
1998: The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is signed into law amending copyright laws by extending the duration of copyright protection for an additional 20 years. The Walt Disney Company lobbied for the extension in an effort to keep its trademark Mickey Mouse out of the public domain.
2002: Moving Image Collections (MIC) is launched, an international union catalog and portal for discovery of moving images for education and research. The MIC project's goal is to facilitate collaborative cataloging, preservation, programming, and digitization activities. MIC is an AMIA-Library of Congress collaboration, with major funding from the National Science Foundation.