Library Council Awards Grants to Nine Audiovisual Collections
posted May 2, 2019
The Council on Library and Information Resources, an independent, nonprofit organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that works to enhance research, teaching, and learning environments in collaboration with libraries, cultural institution, and communities of higher learning, has awarded its Recordings at Risk grants to 20 institutions. Among the 20 awards, 9 relate to audiovisual collections, and they range in value from $10,908 to $50,000.
The Huntley Footage Service Goes Blogging
posted April 13, 2019
To publicize a film-archive service, a well-written, attractively presented blog may serve as well as a paid advertisement. The Huntley Film Archives, based in rural Herefordshire, has recently begun to take that route to spreading the word about its holdings, and its blog — The Voice from the Vaults — makes for fascinating reading whether or not you are looking to buy film clips.
The Signal Tower Heads the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
posted April 3, 2019
The San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the leading North American event of its kind, takes place May 1-5 at the city’s historic Castro Theatre, and among the event’s great attractions, this year, is the screening of a restoration of "The Signal Tower," a 1924 railroad drama set in the picturesque redwoods of northern California.
AMIA Authors: Writing about Moving Image Archiving
posted March 4, 2019
If you wonder how to film on 3mm cameras, or safeguard born-digital media content, or navigate the choppy waters of new-media creation and preservation, you will find leads on AMIA Authors, a recently launched website of items about moving-image archiving.
25 Additions to the National Film Registry
posted December 20, 2018
U.S. Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced on 12 December 2018 the annual selection of 25 influential American motion pictures to be added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Induction marks films’ cultural, historic, and aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage, and being added to the registry ensures that chosen films are permanently preserved.
Home Movie Day 2018 is Here
posted October 20, 2018
Your family members and friends may blanch at the idea of sitting through your home movies, but plenty of people do want to see them – so much so that the Center for Home Movies holds an annual event to facilitate and encourage the sharing of such records of everyday life. This year, takes place today, Saturday, 20 October. Events are being held around the world over this weekend, while other events take place throughout the year.
CLIR Helps Preserve Collections at Risk
posted October 13, 2018
Film of key events in late-1960s political life, footage of Native American song and ceremony, and audiovisual records of diasporic Jewish life in India and other nations are to be preserved thanks to grants from the nonprofit Council on Library and Information Resources. Those films are among the collections of audiovisual content of high scholarly value that have recently received financial support as part of the CLIR’s Recordings at Risk grant program.
Library of Congress Launches Its National Screening Room
posted September 26, 2018
Rare glimpses of George and Ira Gershwin working and socializing… Mid-20th century newsreels made for African-American audiences… Paper prints of D.W. Griffith shorts… Footage of the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley, and Frank Sinatra… Those are among hundreds of hours of motion pictures that The Library of Congress has digitized and made freely available on its newly launched National Screening Room website.
Funds for Collections on Black Champions, Yu’Pik Life, and Censorship
posted July 16, 2018
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission has announced 31 grants to archives to preserve moving-image collections. The awards, announced by David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, totaled over $4-million. Grants relating to moving-image collections went to Washington University’s William Miles collection, Bethel Broadcasting in Alaska, Indiana State Library, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and Rutgers University of New Jersey’s Papers of Thomas A. Edison project.
The Fuentes Family: Pioneer Home-Film Makers
posted December 22, 2017
Fluid migration has long shaped the Southwest of the United States — certainly since well before the U.S. fashioned the region from large tracts of Mexico during a military invasion in the 1840s, and certainly ever since. Unfortunately, even after the invention of moving film, audiovisual records of Mexican-American life were rare; but the Library of Congress has just designated a collection of home movies from border life during the 1920s as worthy of permanent preservation.