Rachael Stoeltje

Rachael Stoeltje’s tenure as chief of the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, which includes the Library’s Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, began in January 2025. Stoeltje oversees the state-of-the-art facility where the Library of Congress acquires, preserves and provides access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of films, television programs, radio broadcasts and sound recordings.

Before joining the Library, Stoeltje was the director of the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive since 2010, where she grew the archive and oversaw the university’s Mass Digitization and Preservation Initiative for motion picture film. Stoeltje is the outgoing president of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, where she organized global symposia, an annual conference and initiatives to expand diversity in the field of audiovisual preservation.

One of Stoeltje’s most significant contributions to the field is her steadfast dedication to cultivating the next generation of professionals, through her home institution and through professional associations. Stoeltje is addressing head-on some of the many challenges facing our archives today, such as the fragility and lack of standardization of current born-digital media, AI technologies’ impact on authenticity and history in archival media, and environmental impacts on our global archives. Stoeltje’s research interests include film history, media preservation and training and outreach for global education.

Her recent projects include the co-edited International Federation of Film Archives anthology “Tales from the Vaults: Film Technology over the Years and Across Continents” (2023), the launch of the Preservation for Filmmakers program with the Association of Moving Image Archivists to ensure current productions are available to future generations, and A Century of 16mm, a yearlong series of events dedicated to the 100^th anniversary of 16mm film (2023).

Stoeltje earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University. She also trained at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film. She has expertise with early color photographic processes, a background in fine arts photography and extensive archival experience in film and video preservation.