Advocacy
Along with costs and barriers relating to materials and their storage, there are a great many advocacy challenges in the archival world, and the ones that film archives face are unique. To respond to these challenges, archives today must promote the cultural and historic importance of the films they strive to preserve. The Museum of Modern Art was a forerunner in this process starting in the 1930s, screening films and creating a library in which to house and provide access 16mm and 35mm films for educational use[8]. However, this process was slow-growing, but has gained momentum in recent years in response to the growing popularity of films and filmmaking as a form of intellectual material, not merely as entertainment. Archives have been at the head of this movement in building up collections that represent this intellectual material. Luckily, part of what contributes to archives’ growing collections is the fact that many people no longer wish to keep dangerous nitrate film stock, thereby donating it to a repository with the means to care for it properly[9].
Notes
[8] Slide 2000:19
[9] Slide 2000:13
Along with costs and barriers relating to materials and their storage, there are a great many advocacy challenges in the archival world, and the ones that film archives face are unique. To respond to these challenges, archives today must promote the cultural and historic importance of the films they strive to preserve. The Museum of Modern Art was a forerunner in this process starting in the 1930s, screening films and creating a library in which to house and provide access 16mm and 35mm films for educational use[8]. However, this process was slow-growing, but has gained momentum in recent years in response to the growing popularity of films and filmmaking as a form of intellectual material, not merely as entertainment. Archives have been at the head of this movement in building up collections that represent this intellectual material. Luckily, part of what contributes to archives’ growing collections is the fact that many people no longer wish to keep dangerous nitrate film stock, thereby donating it to a repository with the means to care for it properly[9].
Notes
[8] Slide 2000:19
[9] Slide 2000:13