Regional Moving Image Archives in the United States

Incunabula. An avalanche of junk. In the early 1980s, alphas in the film archives world described film from out-of-the-way places using terms that vibrated between misty yearning and insulting. For many in charge, unpreserved nontheatrical film "out there" was intriguing—but unfamiliar and probably ugly. I believe there has been a shift in how regional custodians view the value of their work; however, many regional archives are not yet seeing a stampede of traffic. Substantial scholarly use of regional collections is just beginning.

Regional audiovisual archives collect, preserve, and provide access to film and video selected on the basis of geography. These archives gather moving images and associated materials relating to the people and places in which the collections are maintained. A region can be as local as Chicago's South Side or as broad as Hawaii and the Pacific. Many are educational or governmental organizations and most are units within larger organizations.¹

How many regional moving image archives are there in the United States and how long have they been around? The stock footage resource book, Footage 89, published by Prelinger Associates, contains just over 100 collections that may be described as regional.² Almost all fall within four types of host organizations: state and municipal historical societies (e.g., Chicago Historical Society), state and municipal libraries (e.g., Connecticut State Library), university special collections (e.g., University of Kentucky Audiovisual Archives), and corporate entities including production houses (e.g., Las Vegas News Bureau).

Footage 89 is a prodigious directory and represents an excellent baseline. Yet there is no current comprehensive directory of regional moving image archives in the United States. While writing this article I compiled a working list from the AMIA Regional Audio-Visual Archives interest group, the Library of Congress National Film Preservation Board Web site, MIC, the NFPF community of archives, the UNESCO Archives Portal, the Council of State Historical Records Coordinators, and personal contacts. That list includes 110 archives.³

Twenty years ago many audiovisual collections, even if recognized within their host institutions and given operating budgets, had few funding options for growth (or even for regular preservation copying). Some of the best-known film preservation grant programs at the time, including the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts preservation program, gave few small awards to organizations that were not already at the table. Those that were at the table were largely perceived as "national" collections.⁴

Regional moving image archives in the United States have benefited from the establishment of the National Film Preservation Board and grants from the NFPF, supporting public and nonprofit organizations engaged in film preservation through a direct grant program, laboratory in-kind grants, and special projects.⁵ Other major funding for regional moving image preservation and access in the United States has come from the NEH Division of Preservation and Access and the NEH Office of Challenge Grants, from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, from private foundations, and from state and local funders. In my own region, the Maine Humanities Council was an early supporter of Northeast Historic Film (NHF). The Maine Community Foundation and other area foundations responded to grant requests from NHF for bricks and mortar, school outreach, Web development, and laboratory copying.

Some state-based film collections were begun in the latter part of the last century, but in many cases institutional resources trailed behind staff commitment. These collections have survived, some of them with quiescent periods, and remain within their host institutions: the Wisconsin Historical Society's Paul Vanderbilt, curator of Iconography, started collecting moving images in 1958–59; the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Resources was founded in 1960, but did not collect film until 1969;⁶ University of Alaska Fairbanks Alaska Film Archives at Elmer E. Rasmuson Library was established in 1968; Rhode Island Historical Society's Library Graphics Department moving image collection was started in 1969 University of Kentucky Audio-Visual Archives began in 1974; and according to Michele Kribs, Oregon Historical Society received its first motion picture film collection in the early 1970s and...