NATIONAL FILM PRESERVATION FOUNDATION AWARDED GRANT TO CREATE NEW FILM PRESERVATION GUIDES
Contact: Barbara Gibson (415-392-7291, barbara@webbnet.com)
San Francisco, CA (July 24, 2002)—Thanks to a $165,000 grant just awarded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) will create and publish two new film preservation guides for libraries and museums. The reference works will be developed by international authorities—David Francis, retired Chief of the Library of Congress' Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, and Jim Reilly, Director of the Rochester Institute of Technology's Image Permanence Institute—and tested by the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman House.
Unlike the technical manuals now used in the film industry, these new tools will be designed specifically for non-specialists working with regional films, home movies, and other motion pictures found in public and nonprofit institutions. The guides will explain preservation and storage techniques that are practical for regional collections and include illustrations developed by the Selznick School.
"Scores of museums, universities, historical societies, and libraries have historically significant films but little information on how to care for them. These new guides will help regional collections preserve their films and open up resources for the scholarly community," said Abby Smith, Director of Programs, Council on Library and Information Resources. Ms. Smith will serve on the editorial committee with representatives from Duke University, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Nebraska State Historical Society, and Northeast Historic Film.
The Film Preservation Guide and Media Storage Quick Reference are slated for completion in December 2003. The complementary works will be available on the Internet and through the Council on Library and Information Resources.
The National Film Preservation Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving America's film heritage. Created by the U.S. Congress in 1996, the NFPF is the charitable affiliate of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. For more information on NFPF, please visit the NFPF web site: www.filmpreservation.org.
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