As 2025 comes to an end, we’re digging back into our archives to revisit some of our favorite stories of the year. by Vivian McCall As 2025 comes to an end, we’re digging back into our archives to revisit some of our favorite st ories of the year. See them all here. Libby Hopfauf and Annalise Nicholson are in a race against time, and against tape. It’s a spring afternoon, and we’re sitting in the office of the Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound (MIPoPS), a narrow rectangular room at City Hall. Old audiovisual technology is stacked to the high ceiling. In the corner by the door, there’s a reel-to-reel dictaphone for listening to old Seattle City Hall meetings. There’s a gray behemoth with reels the size of serving plates made for sports instant replays. On the floor sits a cardboard box of cassettes, oral histories from the Wing Luke Museum recorded in the mid ’90s. Nicholson pulls a yellow-shelled Memorex cassette from the box and asks if I remembered them. MIPoPS works mostly with organizations that don’t have the money or know-how to preserve their own magnetic media. It’s urgent work. Tapes are rapidly degrading. The machines that play tapes are breaking down, and for the most obscure formats, replacement parts and repairmen are in short supply. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has sounded the alarm. Magnetic tape not digitized by the end of this year may be lost forever. ...read more read less