As a media librarian, you [need] skills in university technology [...] The media librarian really has to get in on the conversation and say, we’re doing this, we want to do this, how can you help? Or, how can we help you?
It takes special skills to handle media collections and people like me who go to a traditional library program don’t have those skills necessarily. So it’s been great having [someone] here to see what you can do with that kind of training and background. It’s been eye opening because I can see the cautious, careful, methodical approach, but I also see that there are some things we don’t have to be as frightened of.
This summer I received an IMLS grant for work in film preservation at the University of South Carolina’s Moving Image Research Collections. The work for this grant focused specifically on the C.E. Feltner collection, which contains a large percentage of Pathé newsreel material, early travelogue films, and other noteworthy items.
During the course of her summer internship with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the MIAP intern, Ashley Swinnerton, learned to properly care for, store, and catalogue archival audio materials, including most formats of tape and disc recordings.