Libraries

Last revised October 3, 2018

Mission and Goals

The Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive plays an active role in the conservation, use, and promotion of the Libraries' motion picture, and archival video collections.

The Archive supports, collaborates with, and helps lead the teaching, research, and creative activities of faculty and students at Indiana University and other educational organizations, private individuals, and community archiving groups.

The Archive manages the Libraries Screening Room as a welcoming and inclusive place to expand and promote film-going culture throughout Bloomington through partnerships with IU Cinema and the Media School.

As a leader in national and international efforts toward media preservation, the Archive establishes and coordinates national and international archival training programs and is taking great strides in becoming the preeminent national archive for nontheatrical, documentary, and home media.

The Archive, in full support of the IU Libraries Diversity Strategic Plan, is “developing collections that reflect the world’s complexity and diversity…providing open, accessible, and collegial help that connects researchers with the full range of Indiana University’s library and archival collections” and is ”maintaining comfortable and collaborative spaces that respect individuals’ social, cultural, mental, and physical differences."

Collecting Focus

The Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive is actively working to expand the Libraries motion picture film and videotape collections provided new acquisitions fall into the following collecting areas:
• Nontheatrical film and video with an emphasis on educational, training, nonfiction, and documentary programs. This is the core of the archive’s holdings with current collections including the Audio-Visual Center, Agency for Instructional Technology, Lane Educational Service District from Oregon, films from the Mid-Hudson Libraries, Naomi Feil’s films and video on Validation training, the media used by the two different midwives, Thomas G. Smith, and Teaching Film Custodians.
• Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana and regional moving image history. Related collections already at the Moving Image Archive include Indiana specific films made by the Audio-Visual Center, Philip Holland and Nancy Hanin home movies, Robert Petranoff, WSJV news library, and Senator Vance Hartke films.
• Early educational and local Indiana television programs building off of collections such as National Educational Television, the WSJV news video library, films and video from the RTVS, and TV programs in the Petranoff collection.
• Advertising, sponsored films, and corporate video. The major collection in this area is the Clio Awards television ads, but also includes sponsored films by the Feil’s, Indiana-based TV ads in the Frink Film Studios Collection, sponsored films in the Robert Young collection, and videos made by Robert Goodman.
• Home movies, amateur films, home video, and personal media. This is a relatively new and growing collecting area, though home movies by Bernadine Bailey, Eileen Brennan, the personal films and videos in the Ed and Naomi Feil collection, and of the Philip Holland and Nancy Hanin families are excellent examples of the value of personal media.
• History of home media including both film and video and technology such as small gauge cameras and projectors, and home video cameras and decks. Examples of collections by private film collectors include David Bradley and Chester Gleim; the Classic Cinema Video Collectors Club covers early home video, and the Alan Lewis collection of small gauge film cameras and projectors.
• Collections that support the research, teaching, learning, and creative activities of Indiana University faculty and students.
• Collections that support the film and arts programming on campus including events at the IU Cinema and Libraries Screening Room.

Criteria for Acquiring Collections

The Moving Image Archive collects moving image works in all types of film gauges and analog video formats. Collections of vintage motion picture and video cameras, small gauge projectors, monitors, and video decks are also accepted. Audio recordings, papers, photos, book, objects, and ephemera will be accepted if they provide context to moving image productions.

The archive has the capacity at this time to accept large collections, but the decision to acquire a collection is partially dependent on the amount of available storage space within the climate controlled conservation facility.

At least fifty percent of a new collection acquisition must be unique when compared to the current holdings. Duplicate titles may be deaccessioned depending on uniqueness, condition, and storage availability.

The Moving Image Archive cannot accept nitrate films. If offered a collection entirely comprised of nitrate films then the archive will recommend archival institutions that can legally store nitrate films. If a collection has a small number of nitrate films, the collection might be accepted with nitrate films being separated out and donated to another archive.

The condition of a collection must be of the level to be stored in the conservation facility without concern of acetic acid off gassing and deterioration contamination to the other holdings. If only a segment of the collection is of poor condition, we might only accept those items in acceptable shape.

The archive does not have a budget for purchasing collections.

Collections are not accepted on deposit.