Bill Murphy

Bill Murphy has had a long association with documentary film and other non-fiction genres stemming from his career in the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), where he managed its extensive audiovisual collections. Through his publications, film presentations, and speeches to audiences of producers and historians he helped draw attention to the historical resources in NARA’s custody. After retiring from NARA, he established his own archives consulting service, which has enabled him to participate in numerous American and European documentary productions based on archival films and photographs. In 2005 to celebrate VE-Day’s 60th anniversary under the sponsorship of the U.S. Embassy in Prague, he assembled rare combat film records of the liberation of Western Czechoslovakia by American soldiers, and his presentations in Czech cities and towns attracted extensive public interest and news coverage.

A consummate audiovisual archivist, he was elected as the Founding President of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), which gave him its award for career achievement. He has served as a board member for the Council of Non-Theatrical Events, the Smithsonian’s Human Studies Film Archives, and the Archives of Factual Film. He is also a recipient of the International Documentary Association’s Preservation and Scholarship Award; and, his publications include Robert Flaherty (G.K. Hall), about the pioneer documentary filmmaker, and The Current Preservation Status of American Television and Video (Library of Congress), in addition to numerous articles about documentary film, history, and archives.