Jason Curtis: A Librarian Who Collects Media Formats
posted May 25, 2018
After working with many media formats that disappeared from use, Jason Curtis decided to start collecting examples of those dodos of audiovisual and computer technology. Inevitably, collecting introduced him to more and more formats that he had never used, nor in many cases ever heard of, and he began gathering examples of those, too. Now he has examples of hundreds of media formats.
Jack Shaheen’s Preservation of a Troubling Film Legacy
posted May 2, 2018
Hollywood and other branches of the American entertainment industry have frequently disparaged and abused Arabs, Muslims, and Americans of those ethnicities. Adverse depictions have long been so common as to be almost automatic. Those stereotypes are the study of a project at New York University based on an unusual collection: the archive donated by Jack G. Shaheen.
Insuring a Rich Archive of African American Life
posted April 24, 2018
When three insurance agents founded the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1925 in Los Angeles, they aimed to provide insurance protection for fellow African Americans, who were consistently denied coverage in the segregated United States, and to be able to offer “dignified employment” to African American colleagues. The University of California at Los Angeles Library is working to preserve a trove of materials from throughout the company’s history, including films, and its efforts are benefiting from goodwill towards the company that remains evident in Los Angeles.
Reviewing the Films of Expo 67
posted March 24, 2018
Expo 67, the World’s Fair held in Montreal in 1967, was rather an hallucinogenic affair. Among its memorable features were its wildly innovative audiovisual projections. They were large, bold, and spectacular. In purpose-built pavilions, the Expo’s films boasted dazzling arrays of often-huge screens and novel, captivating forms of viewership. Pavilions immersed viewers within enormous audiovisual environments.
When You Renovate, Keep Your Eyes Open for Movies
posted February 28, 2018
Old houses’ wall cavities can be a delightful kind of repository. Ten year olds might imagine they’d contain treasure maps, or at least rolls of twenties in crumbled rubber bands. But the structures are rather more likely to conceal wads of newspaper. Odd troves of news. On occasion, a kind of moving-image archive, too.
Film Dresses Fashion, Fashion Drapes Film
posted February 2, 2018
When Marketa Uhlirova and her colleagues first organized a festival of fashion in film, in 2006, theirs was a little-studied area of inquiry. So, they threw their net wide, to a range of questions and issues: to pretty much anything relating to fashion and costume and their role in the history and theory of film. And, conversely, film’s role in fashion.
Diversity and Inclusion in Archiving
posted January 15, 2018
How is the archiving profession faring, when it comes to diversity and inclusion? The Journal of Western Archives will publish a special issue on diversity, inclusion, and cultural diversity during 2018. Its editors have disseminated a call for papers (deadline 1 April 2018), with such potential topics as the history of diversity in the archiving