Selznick School Presentation

A trip to Rochester, NY, through snow and wind resulted in a delayed arrival--and departure--Tuesday, December 7, on the way to presenting to the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation class of 2011 at George Eastman House.
The Selznick students participated in discussion of regional moving image archives policies and practices. This class of twelve was particularly tuned in to acquisition and access issues. "How do you generate public interest?" (Justin LaLiberty). "How do you determine the cultural value of materials before acquisition?" (Marissa Haddock). "What do you do for rare materials in poor condition?" (Nikki Shayer).

These questions are addressed in the case of the Norma Willard Collection footage, which was originally accepted at the archives with a donation of a VHS videotape showing three young people with a kayak and a three-section rowboat. Research determined that the unique footage related to a significant marine architect, Norman Skene, and our online finding aid points others to his publications. Happily in the course of this project our executive director recontacted the donor who still had the original 35 mm. film and was pleased to donate it to Northeast Historic Film. The print has been accessioned and will be sent to the laboratory for film-to-film preservation. Here is the collection record for the Norma Willard Collection.

During the day's presentation we talked about descriptive practices and our use of the PBCore data structure standard. The item-level description will help expose the content to the public and will provide important metadata for finding and managing the future digital copies of the 1921 work.