In a new video on its YouTube channel, The Video Game History Foundation has revealed an exciting first look at its upcoming library tools that will eventually be made available to researchers, academics, and video game enthusiasts in the future.
Ever since The Video Game History Foundation was first launched back in 2017, members of the organization, including its founder Frank Cifaldi, have repeatedly spoken about the desire to create a readily available digital archive of its video game materials, so that people could take advantage of its discoveries without having to hop on a plane. But up until this video, we hadn't actually heard that much information about what this database would look like or exactly what would be included in it.
The video goes into greater detail about all of the above, while also introducing us to the library director of The Video Game History Foundation Phil Salvador, whose job it has been over the last 1-2 years to coordinate and curate this material behind the scenes.
As the video suggests, the library already contains a wealth of fantastic materials that The Video Game History Foundation has managed to preserve over the years, including everything from old video game magazines to websites, videos, design documents, audio assets, press CDs, concept art, and more. It is a little unfinished and unpolished as it is still in active development, but it already looks to be an amazing companion resource to more generalized online archives like The Internet Archive (which we find ourselves regularly taking advantage of).
The library is expected to launch sometime next year. We'll keep you posted as more information on the database becomes available