EnDOW Community: Unlocking orphan films

The EnDOW project (2014-2018) has created the Diligent Search Tool to faciliate diligent search on potential orphan works laying unexploited in archives, museums, libraries and other memory insitutions across Europe.

EnDOW Community is a follow-on project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It aims at recruiting a community of volunteers to help the British Film Institute (BFI) and other UK national and regional film archives to perform diligent searches on a selection of films in their collection. The films that result “orphan works” after a diligent search will be lawfully digitized and made available to the public.

Everyone can help by following three simple steps. 

Step 1 – Watch our introduction and video tutorials

Step 2 – Register to the EnDOW Community

Step 3 – Go to the list of films and start your diligent search