Abstract

With moving image materials increasingly being used for research, education, and communication, the Film & Media Archive at Washington University is uniquely situated to become a major center for new scholarship. With a particular emphasis on the African American experience, its collections focus on the preservation of documentaries and other media which chronicle America’s great political and social movements. The Archive’s collections are complex, in the kinds of materials it contains, copyright issues, physical formats, and their relationship to other elements in the film production process. Nonetheless, as this article suggests, the abundance of primary source material in the collection, coupled with recent developments in new technology, offers the promise of transforming old media formats for use in new and exciting forms research, education, and scholarly communication.

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