National Audio-Visual Conservation Center

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008)

The National Audiovisual Conservation Center, also known as the Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation, is the Library of Congress' new audiovisual archive located inside Mount Pony in Culpeper, Virginia. From 1969 to 1988, the facility was a high security storage facility operated by the Federal Reserve Board.

Contents

[edit] Federal Reserve Bunker

With Cold War tensions came fear that in the event of a nuclear war, the economy of the United States would be destroyed. In response to this, the United States Federal Reserve constructed a bunker to house enough U.S. currency to replenish the cash supply east of the Mississippi River in the event of a catastrophic event.

Commissioned on December 10, 1969, the bunker was also National Program Office facility intended to provide back-up continuity of government. The facility was stocked with sufficient supplies to support a population of 540 for thirty days. The entrance is a steel reinforced concrete building with lead-lined radiation-proof steel shutters that can seal the bunker off from the surface in a matter of seconds. The entire facility is 140,000 square feet. The main vault was 23,500 square feet and contained billions in shrink-wrapped notes from 1969 until 1988. [1]

The facility also housed the Culpeper Switch, which was the central switching station of the Federal Reserve's Fedwire electronic funds transfer system, which at the time connected only the Fed's member banks. The Culpeper Switch also served as a data backup point for member banks east of the Mississippi.

[edit] Post Cold War

In 1988, all money was removed from Mount Pony. The Culpeper Switch ceased operation in 1992, its functions having been decentralized to three smaller sites. In addition, its status continuity of government site was removed. The facility was poorly maintained by a skeleton staff until 1997 when the bunker was put up for sale. With the approval of the United States Congress, it was purchased by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond via a $5.5 million dollar grant, done on behalf of the Library of Congress. With a further $150 million from the Packard Humanities Institute and $82.1 million from Congress, the facility was transformed into the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, which opened in mid-2007. The center offered, for the first time, a single site to store all 6.3 million pieces of the library's movie, television, and sound collection.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bahr, Jeff (2007). Weird Virginia. New York, New York: Sterlng Publishing, 57-58. ISBN 1-4027-3942-7. 

[edit] Further reading

  • McCamley, N.J. Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers. Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2002. ISBN 0-85052-746-5

[edit] External links