Hi, Johanna, We are in the midst of a project to determine what to do with our 16mm films. I use the software FileMakerPro to keep track of the films we have that are not in our online catalog. (It's a long story about how all these ended up at the Library...).
Anyway, I have a student assistant who went through each title searching for either DVD or VHS format availability, or even YouTube (although that is highly likely to not be a stable, dependable source). I also had her check WorldCat and/or OhioLink to see what other libraries had holdings for these films to assist us in making retention decisions. I instructed my student to get as creative as possible when searching the web to locate these titles. Needless to say, we didn't find a large number that were available for purchase in a newer format. Now I will follow behind my student assistant and see what I can think of. When we have exhausted that whole process, we will have to make decisions on whether the content is valuable enough that we would want to make an in-house use only copy on DVD. Then we will have to figure out what to do with the actual films we do not want to maintain. I have been keeping my eyes and ears out for discussions on what others are doing, and have located a couple of sources that would probably take them off our hands, but we would have to figure out the shipping, etc. Perhaps a grant of some kind? Not sure. It seems a terrible waste of potentially valuable resources for our faculty and students to not have access to, but it is what it is, and we have to figure out how to deal with it. I'm always looking for tips myself on how others are managing these collections. Jeanne Little On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 8:35 AM, Johanna Bauman <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello, > > Like some other folks on this list, we are currently reviewing our 16mm > holdings and trying to figure out how to manage them moving forward. One > thing I’m interested in finding out is how many of our titles are available > for purchase on DVD, and while this is easy for such distributors as > National Film Board of Canada, others, such as ACI Films and/or Productions > are more challenging. > > Is anyone on this list aware of a good resources for tracking down this > kind of information about distributors of educational films? I suspect > many of these companies would have consolidated at some point. > > Any tips would be most appreciated! > > Cheers, > > Johanna > > > > *+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++* > > *Johanna Bauman* > > Visual Resources Curator > > Pratt Institute Libraries > > 200 Willoughby Avenue > > Brooklyn, New York 11205 > > 718-687-5745 > > [email protected] <https://mail.pratt.edu/images/blank.png> > > *P**ra**t**t* > > > > > > VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of > issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic > control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in > libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as > an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of > communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video > producers and distributors. > > -- Rod Library - Room 250 Collection Management & Special Services University of Northern Iowa Cedar Falls, IA 50613-3675 319-273-7255
VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
