The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center has garnered a fair amount of media attention over the years and 2014 was no exception. Here’s a selection of print and broadcast stories from last year that, taken together, provide a good overview of who we are and what we do. The announcement of new additions to the National …
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson, an Administrative Assistant at the Packard Campus. Our final week celebrating the work of the Packard Campus Film Preservation Laboratory. Thursday, January 29 (7:30 p.m.) Mary of Scotland (RKO, 1936) John Ford directed this historical drama, which stars Katharine Hepburn as Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, …
So pioneer ecologist and deep-sea diver Dr. William Beebe described the scene surrounding his diving bell as he and his partner, Otis Barton, peered into the depths a half mile below the waters near Bermuda in the fall of 1932. The dive, which reached a depth of 2,200 feet, was the deepest a human had ever ventured beneath the …
This blog post was co-written with Jan McKee, Reference Librarian, Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress. During World War II scrap drives were a popular way for everyone to contribute to the war effort. By recycling unused or unwanted metal for example, the government could build ships, airplanes and other equipment needed to fight the …
I wrote in an earlier post about how few copies of Johnny Carson’s first ten years of hosting the Tonight Show survive because of NBC’s re-use of the 2″ Quadruplex videotapes on which the show was recorded, a practice that stopped once Carson purchased the show from NBC in 1972. One of our video preservation …
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson, an Administrative Assistant at the Packard Campus. We continue our series celebrating the work of the Packard Campus Film Preservation Lab. Thursday, January 15 (7:30 p.m.) Nothing But a Man (Cinema V, 1964) A groundbreaking work filmed during the tumult of the civil rights movement, this …
The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson, an Administrative Assistant at the Packard Campus. We’re starting 2015 by celebrating the Packard Campus Film Preservation Laboratory’s work all month. The process of preserving a motion picture can be a long and tedious endeavor. Repairing old, fragile film frame-by-frame can take weeks, followed by extensive …
Within the Library’s NBC Radio History Collection there is an amazing and comprehensive card catalog of network programs, performers and guests from 1930 to 1960. The 8 x 5 inch cards give a complete history of commercial and sustaining programs (programs without a sponsor and with no advertising), performers and artists, and “radio personalities” including …
Of all the roles I’ve done, the one I’d like best to be remembered for is Scrooge. It is unquestionably one of my favorites. Lionel Barrymore, Dec. 21, 1947. The New York Times. (Interview with Dorothy O’Leary). When MGM Records released A Christmas Carol in 1947, Lionel Barrymore had been playing Ebenezer Scrooge for twelve …
