When video killed the radio star, few people were thinking about what would happen 40 years later. But VHS tapes have a life span of just 35 to 65 years—which means tapes from the medium’s 1980s and 1990s heyday are now in jeopardy.
Joshua Lawrence isn’t content to stand by. A librarian by day, the 31-year-old spends time off the clock digitizing rare St. Louis videos that might otherwise be lost forever. Lawrence scours library collection site WorldCat for St. Louis—related VHS tapes, checks them out, digitizes them, cleans them up, and then uploads the results to archive.org.
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Once VHS tapes degrade too badly, they’re gone forever. “On a deeper, philosophical level, history has been erased so often, right?” Lawrence asks.
He sees his new hobby as an extension of his passion for library work. “My friends always make fun of me for how much I love the writer Howard Zinn,” he says. “But one thing that always drew me to his whole deal as a historian and archivist is that he’s like, ‘Look, yes, you do this as a job, but also you have your values first, right?’ So it’s about examining what you actually care about, and using those skills toward that.”
His day job also gives him the skills to take on work that others couldn’t. Just getting the videos to play often takes expertise. “Fun fact, I can break apart and reassemble a VHS tape like a World War I army man with his rifle,” he boasts.
Back when St. Louis Twitter was still a thriving community of news junkies and local enthusiasts, Lawrence gained a following at @STLPoliticClips. By making and posting short videos of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, he was able to garner interest in local politics, reducing multi-hour debates to their essence or finding the perfect shocking moment. He told the Riverfront Times he was inspired to do the work after an elderly neighbor was killed by St. Louis Police.
“Constantly, I try to think, ‘What is in my ability; what is needed to prevent these events from happening in the future?’” he said. “Turns out, pulling video and explaining things is in my ability and was needed. I can only hope this helps those doing the vital on-the-ground work.”
As Twitter became X and the local community moved on, he’s largely quit social media. He found his new hobby while helping his father, who was writing a book about Homer G. Phillips, do research. He found a VHS program on WorldCat about the historic Black hospital. “The thing I love about it is it covers a lot of the resistance to the hospital closure, which a lot of times is under-discussed,” he says. He found himself wondering what else was on WorldCat—and found a new purpose.
Lawrence has now digitized 35 tapes, with more on the way (you can watch his collection grow online). He’s finally starting to tell friends about it. “Since @sTLPoliticClips went down, a lot of my conversations with my friends is like, ‘Oh, what are you doing now?’ And I’m basically just being like, Okay, well, what, what can I do? And what is of use? And it turns out I know how to do digital media, breaking apart a VHS tape like a World War I rifleman.”
