Clips of history, a click away

The result will be the Boston TV News Digital Library, the first online repository of Boston television news from 1959 to 2000. The idea is to build a video catalog of Boston histo ry, as captured in daily newscasts, that will be available over the Internet.

The big effort is bringing together otherwise fierce rivals. The digitization process is painstaking, and the archive will feature only a fraction of the material in the vault. Still, there will be 40 hours of Boston TV news, or about 600 reports, on some of the biggest events in the city, as captured by WGBH-TV (Channel 2), WHDH-TV (Channel 7), WCVB-TV (Channel 5), and Cambridge Community Television. The TV news library is being funded with $900,000 in grants from nonprofit groups and federal agencies such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

“The focus in Boston history is always about the Pilgrims and the Revolution and Paul Revere,’’ said Karen Cariani, director of WGBH Media Library and Archives “Boston TV News brings four major collections together into one location, an invaluable resource for generations to come.’

It is surprising how fresh the material looks. A pristine film of then-mayor Kevin White reading a statement about school busing in 1974 - “It is a challenge created by no one individual, directed against no particular neighborhood,’’ he said - is followed by grainy footage of protesters at City Hall Plaza. But for the hairstyles and clothing, either could have been filmed yesterday.

Some of the clips look dated despite their excellent condition, largely because they are in black and white. Not many residents had color TV sets when Jimmy Durante and Rocky Marciano visited the city in 1960; “Jimmy, these people love ya,’’ the fighter says in the clip. A story from the previous year shows Castro in Boston, the Cuban leader waving tentatively from the middle of a scrum of reporters.