The Regional Media Legacies Blog

During the Fall 2021 semester, the RML project supported two interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern was hosted by an organization located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Alyosha Nowlin, who interned at the R.C. Diocese of Brooklyn.

Inaugurated in April 2019, with the appointment of Project Manager, Marie Lascu, the Regional Media Legacies project (RML) is a program designed to support the training of Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) graduate students in the care and management of audiovisual and digital media collections held across Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, New York. With generous funding from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, students and graduates from the MIAP program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts have been assisting a variety of regional organizations in processing and better understanding their audiovisual collections while providing guidance on future care and preservation of these collections. One such institution is the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn Archives, which has previously hosted two MIAP interns under the RML project.

Work at the Diocesan Archives was conducted this term by a third MIAP student, Alyosha Nowlin, who has been continuing organizational efforts begun by previous interns Lindsay Miller and Ben Rubin, refining these processes to assist the archives with future inventory, inspection, and metadata collection. Where Ben Rubin helped advance the inventory, and digitized a number of video tapes using the RML video kit, another MIAP intern, Lindsay Miller, designed an identification system, and assigned unique identifiers to 441 items. Lindsay’s work was performed offsite due to the pandemic, and items were not physically labeled because of remote work restrictions. Because my internship allowed for in-person access, I was able to physically apply labels to these, and over 100 additional items.

Audiovisual collections at the Diocese are diverse and are kept in more than one location. Most items are stored either at the Archives in Brooklyn or offsite at the Immaculate Conception Center on Long Island. Work was done at the Prospect Park location, with many items being brought in for inspection at the Archives office. Materials come from a variety of church-related organizations, including Pastoral Communications, the Public Information Office, and the Superintendent of Schools curriculum media. Other notable collections include original MiniDV video tapes of the Senior Priest Oral History Project and audio tapes of the Point of View: Catholic series, with some early episodes originally recorded on ¼” audio tape for broadcast on local radio. Media formats inspected as part of this internship include audiocassette, ¼” audio tape, Digital Audio Tape, 33 ⅓ RPM vinyl discs, ¾” Umatic cassettes, VHS, and Betacam SP.

To date, over 600 items have been inventoried, labeled, inspected with care, and included in a spreadsheet detailing their condition. Items were organized by collection provenance, and arranged by format. Using the Filter function in Google Sheets, displayed inventory can be modified to include only certain information. For example, users may now look in the mixed-media “POV” collection, and search for material by media type or format…

By degree/type of damage…

By manufacturer…

…and by recommended preservation action, among other criteria, while the search function allows for the rapid connection of a title to its location and unique identifier. New spreadsheet columns were added to previously created inventories, enabling the detailed gathering of metadata based on format. Following up on the valiant efforts of my MIAP predecessor, Lindsay Miller, I am confident that this expanded template will suffice for the future collection of audiovisual metadata at the Diocese.

From the perspective of a media preservation specialist, the most at-risk materials are the audio tapes. First are the ¼” audio tapes, stored on reels, some of which have been subjected to serious damage in playback years before this project. These tapes cannot be inspected accurately without playback equipment; their specific content, besides program and date, are often obscure or unknown; and they show signs of binder degradation upon preliminary inspection. Many audiocassettes are likewise succumbing to the effects of flaking emulsion and their lifespan is significantly limited in comparison with either videocassettes or optical media. Some audio tapes may already be impossible to play, and therefore capture, suggesting that overall, these items are in urgent need of reformatting and digital preservation. Certainly, the audio tape materials encountered in this internship work are in more dire need of preservation than any other format.

While the ¼” audio tapes are in most immediate need of action based on their state of degradation, it was decided, in consultation with the archivist, that the Senior Priest Oral History collection, comprised of MiniDV video cassettes and optical discs, should be selected for its cultural significance and overall unity as a project. The collection totals 139 items, with 54 MiniDV, 77 DVDs, and 8 CDs. Original footage was captured on MiniDV, between 2007 and 2009, and edited content was transferred to optical media formats by a private videographer. Content on optical media is unencrypted, can be easily transferred to digital storage, and for these reasons, was not selected for preservation by an outside vendor. As a capstone to this internship, it has been decided that all 54 unedited MiniDV tapes shall be preserved by a qualified outside vendor. Files will be preserved on redundant storage, and a request for proposals has been prepared to locate an ideal vendor for this project.

In conclusion, this internship has been a wonderful opportunity to apply knowledge gained in my MIAP studies and throughout my prior career as an apprentice archivist. I am grateful for my previous MIAP internship of Summer 2021 at the Bay Area Video Coalition, where I learned many terms that helped me describe the Diocese’s archival media and their status more accurately. Also, my skills with inventory software and spreadsheet optimization have improved substantially. It is hoped that the modified inventory template provided will serve the Diocesan Archives as they proceed with their AV collections inventory, and that future interns will be better equipped to conduct assessments of this large, mixed-media collection.

During the Fall 2021 semester, the RML project supported two interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern was hosted by an organization located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Kirk Mudle, who interned at Queens Museum.

For my final internship in the MIAP program, I had the privilege of working with Queens Museum to help preserve and research the 16mm and 8mm motion picture film in their World’s Fair Collection.

Founded in 1972 in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, the Queens Museum is a non-profit institution that presents art exhibitions, public programs, and educational experiences for people in the New York Metropolitan area, and particularly the residents of Queens. The Queens Museum frequently collaborates with local artists and community partners to host public events and performances that address topics such as gender-justice, mental health, environmental justice, youth enrichment, gun violence prevention, and LGBTQ+ activism. While Queens Museum is deeply concerned with the contemporary issues of its constituents, they are also dedicated to creating opportunities for researchers and artists to reexamine and interrogate the history of New York City through long-term exhibitions, including their New York World’s Fair Collection. 

The Queens Museum’s history is inextricably linked with the 1939-40 and 1964-65 New York World’s Fairs. The Museum was once the New York City Building, which was built to house the New York City Pavilion for the 1939-40 World’s Fair. After temporarily serving as the headquarters for the United Nations General Assembly between 1946 and 1950, the building reprised its role as the City’s official pavilion during the 1964-65 World’s Fair. 51 million visitors attended the second Fair, which ran over the course of two six month summer seasons and hosted 140 pavilions representing 80 nations, 24 US states, and over 45 corporations in a grand celebration of commercialism and capitalism couched in the utopian theme of “Peace through Understanding.” This theme was symbolized by a 140 foot high, 900,000 lb. stainless-steel model of the Earth called the “Unisphere” that still stands directly adjacent to the Queens Museum. The Queens Museum preserves the history of these two exhibitions through its collection of 10,000 objects related to the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World’s Fairs.

Advancements in audiovisual technology played a major role at the World’s Fairs: National pavilions and pavilions sponsored by industry leaders including Ford, General Electric, Pepsi Cola, and Kodak produced multimedia installations that combined live performances, film, and animation, and the World’s Fair Corporation relied heavily on the moving image as a means to promote the event. The Queens Museum has acquired approximately 100 audiovisual items through donations from Fair attendees, private collectors, and figures directly related to the World’s Fairs. These items represent a wide variety of formats spanning the history of 20th-century recording technology, including 16mm and 8mm motion picture film, optical disks, U-Matic and VHS tapes, audio cassettes, phonograph records, and open-reel audio tapes. In terms of content, they range from home-movies, documentaries, newsreel footage, and promotional, industrial, and corporate-sponsored films—all of which provide unique insights into the events.

In 2017, the Queens Museum received a large donation from Pam Tonucci, the heir of Hugo A. Seiler, the Director of Radio and Television Operations for the 1964-65 World’s Fair. This donation consisted of Seiler’s personal archive of World’s Fair mementos and included a total of 37 16mm films, 14 photographic slides, 12 open reel audio tapes, and 3 boxes of assorted print materials. While the print items were accessioned and cataloged at the time of donation, the Museum did not have the resources or expertise to process the audiovisual materials. As such, most of the films sat dormant in their original rusting film canisters and degrading shipping containers for years (and in some cases decades), which only served to accelerate their decay and put them at even greater risk. This changed last Spring thanks to the incredible work of my colleagues in the Regional Media Legacies (RML) program. Between January and of August 2021, RML intern Ana Salas and Research Fellow Robert Anen conducted the first assessment of the AV items in the Museum’s collection and performed mold remediation on several of the most at-risk films.

Last Fall, I picked up where Robert and Ana left off to continue inventorying and rehousing the 16mm and 8mm films, and began researching their content, origins, and history (also referred to in the archival world as their “provenance”). I used the film rewind bench Ana built and the RML Film Inspection Kit to inspect each film, attach new leader, repair any severely damaged or deteriorating splices, wind them onto new cores, and placed each into polypropylene canisters—all preservation supplies and equipment the Museum purchased per Robert and Ana’s recommendations. During the rehousing process, I confirmed or updated the metadata in the existing inventory while taking pictures and notes on the content of each film. I paid particular attention to important narrative landmarks, such as the particular World’s Fair pavilions, attractions, and historical figures featured, and noted any information related to their production, provenance, and any potential intellectual property concerns. After gathering this information, I wrote summaries of the films for eventual implementation into the Museum’s Collection Management System, Collection Space, and added notes to the collection spreadsheet about the status of potential rights holders.

I would be remiss not to mention some of my challenges during this project. This was my first time working with film outside of the safety of the MIAP film lab or classroom, so I was initially very intimidated by the idea of handling films this old, fragile, and potentially rare. This was where the support from my supervisors Lynn Maliszewski (Archives and Collections Manager at Queens), and Marie Lascu (Project Manager for RML) proved vital. Both Lynn and Maire exercised seemingly limitless patience with my questions and concerns, and never hesitated to offer advice or connect me with the resources necessary to conduct the work.

Before this internship, I was also mostly unfamiliar with the World’s Fairs. Aside from several childhood visits to the recreations of “It’s a Small World” and the “Carousel of Progress” at Disneyland in Orlando Florida, and a grainy photograph of my mother and grandparents visiting the 1964-65 Fair during the summer of either 1964 or 1965, I had almost no knowledge of the significance of the World’s Fairs or the role they played in shaping the landscape and culture of New York City and the United States. This is once again where Lynn’s expertise and extensive knowledge about these events and relevant information sources became so important. On multiple occasions, she pointed me in the right direction to solve some of the more confounding mysteries about where these films came from, who created them, and their uniqueness. This led to several exciting discoveries, including an early industrial film from the late 1930s that describes the election of Queens Borough president George U. Harvey and the expansion of the borough’s infrastructure, as well as a film directed and written by Hugo A. Seiler himself about the nuclear threat to America posed by the USSR featuring interviews with Colonel Raymond S. Sleeper, nuclear physicist Dr. Edward Teller (known as “the father of the hydrogen bomb”), and United States Air Force general B.A. Schriever. 

In the final weeks of my internship I received a crash course in grant writing. I shadowed Lynn and Raphael Miles, Institutional Giving Manager at Queens, while they put together an application for the Council on Library and Information Resources’ (CLIR) ninth Recordings at Risk grant program. Based on my research during the semester, I helped select specific films that best fit into CLIR’s criteria: those which were at most at-risk, had content that was the rarest and least accessible, or had minimal privacy and intellectual property concerns. I created an updated inventory specifically for the application that contained technical, condition, copyright, and content descriptions for selected films and corresponded with several vendors to receive estimates for digitizing the films.

Reflecting on my time at Queens Museum, I can say confidently that my work will contribute to the Museum’s ability to preserve and make these films accessible to researchers and artists interested in the lasting legacy and consequences of the New York World’s Fairs. The experience also allowed me to grow as an audiovisual archivist in several ways. Not only am I far more comfortable handling delicate film, but I also gained an even greater appreciation for the archivist’s role as a researcher. Preservation does not just involve having the technical knowledge to care for the physical embodiments of cultural artifacts. It also requires an understanding of the social and cultural contexts surrounding their creation, how they were experienced in the past, and how they could be experienced in future. This information is essential in order to both describe collections so that they may be discovered by users and to advocate for their significance as pieces of history.

During the Summer 2021 semester, the RML project supported two interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern worked with the RML Fellows to assist with select collection work from partners located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Ben Rubin, who worked with the Coney Island Museum, R.C. Diocese of Brooklyn, and DeSales Media for the latter half of his Summer internship.

For my summer internship, I interned with NYU’s Regional Media Legacies project, which is funded by the Robert D.L. Gardiner Foundation. Through the RML project, I had the opportunity to work with two iconic New York City nonprofit institutions: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn (in particular the AV collection of their communications branch, DeSales Media), and the Coney Island Museum. For both organizations, I was tasked with inventorying a selection of their audiovisual collections with the end goal of creating a running list of what items they have, what those items contain, and what challenges they may face in terms of preservation. Although both organizations required a similar baseline for starting the internship, I had to examine and inventory very different collections, both in terms of content and medium. As such, in this blog post, I will be tackling each organization separately, before concluding by talking about the experience as a whole.

Coney Island Museum

The Coney Island Museum is the only accredited institution focused solely on the preservation and interpretation of the history of the island. Although the Museum is relatively new (founded in 2014), it still claims an impressive array of artifacts, photographs, and records on Coney Island’s history (see Figure 1 for what the inside of the museum looks like). All of this is in keeping with the stated mission of its parent organization, Coney Island USA (founded 1980) to “defend the honor of American popular culture” by preserving the history of Coney Island. This is done not only through the museum, but also through educational programs targeted toward local youth groups, as well as collaborations with other academic institutions in the hope of further disseminating Coney Island’s history.

For the internship, I had two goals regarding inventorying the Museum’s collection of videotapes: the first one was determining what the tapes might contain and what damage they’ve incurred over the years; the second one was to ascertain if any of the tapes contained footage of or information about Coney Island USA’s other major project, the Mermaid Parade. This event is an annual art parade, started in 1984 by Dick Zigun, who also founded Coney Island USA. The nautical-themed parade has grown in both size and popularity since it first began, with an attendance numbering as high as 800,000. The parade is known for its camp atmosphere and quirky nature, with the public being encouraged to “bribe” the Parade by donating $200 to become a judge at the Parade’s beauty pageant. The Parade has become so well known in recent years that celebrities have begun to be chosen as the Parade’s “King Neptune” and “Queen Mermaid,” including Harvey Keitel, Queen Latifah, Lou Reed, and Debbie Harry. 

All told, I had to inventory over 120 items in the Coney Island collection, consisting mostly of VHS tapes but also including other formats such as compact audio cassettes and Betacam SP videotapes. Due to time constraints and equipment challenges, my work focused mainly on gathering metadata from the physical tapes (information on cases and cassettes) themselves, rather than from reviewing video content. Most of the tapes had at least one or two physical issues that made inventorying them somewhat challenging – for example, some of the tapes had no label on them indicating what their title was. The lack of label information and inability to review tape content resulted in metadata gaps in the inventory which will need to be added to at a later date. On the other hand, I came across at least one tape where I was able to record plenty of metadata just from looking at the tape’s sleeve since the tape was a VHS copy of the 1991 documentary Coney Island by Ric Burns. The tape itself is unplayable because of a large crack in the middle of it. 

For Coney Island, as well as the Brooklyn Diocese, I used a similar system for inventorying the items: a spreadsheet based on a general template the Regional Media Legacies project uses with all of the organizations it works with. This spreadsheet contains fields for various types of metadata that can be gathered from the many items, including technical metadata (ex: how much footage can be stored on a VHS tape), descriptive (ex: the title and/or brief description of the contents of the tape), and administrative (ex: the date the VHS was originally recorded). All of this combines to create a fuller picture of what is on the tape, and how it should be preserved.

Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn has, by contrast, a much longer history than Coney Island USA, having been established in 1853. DeSales Media, founded in 2001, serves as the communications branch of the Diocese, both internal and external, and oversees most of the Diocese’s media outreach. Since it has taken control of the Diocese’s television station, it has amassed a substantial archive of audiovisual materials of different sources and mediums, from audio cassette tapes to Betacam recordings of broadcasts. In my case, I was going through their collection of 16mm films, most of which dated from the 1960s and 1970s. Many of these were instructional materials, such as educational short films shown to students across the Diocese’s large network of schools. There were also occasional television recordings. For example, one of the films was a recording of a segment from The Ed Sullivan Show where Michelangelo’s Pieta had been brought over temporarily from the Vatican for the 1964 World’s Fair.

For this internship, I had four crates full of 16mm films of varying lengths (usually between 10 minutes and 30 minutes). My workstation was in the basement of the Diocese main office, where the Diocese’s general archive is located (note that the general archive is a separate entity from DeSales). My assignment was to go through all of the films, record whatever useful metadata I could glean from physical examinations onto the spreadsheet, and briefly describe any physical damage the films might have incurred over the years. The tapes themselves varied greatly in terms of condition, with some being in remarkably good condition for their age, while others having most of their color faded away due to chemical decay; some of the acetate reels were even starting to develop vinegar syndrome, a chemical process that causes acetate films to decay more rapidly than normal. Whenever I came across a serious issue with the film, whether it be physical or chemical, I made a note of it in the spreadsheet. 

My supervisor from DeSales, Kate Mulvay, reviewed the spreadsheet at the end of every day to monitor progress. We also frequently contacted each other throughout the day to discuss interesting finds, or so I could receive clarification on what I should do in specific situations. For example, at multiple points throughout the internship, I came across several reels where the film had been cut in half, either because of a tear in the celluloid or because of a botched splice that was done years ago (see the photo below for what that looks like). I asked Claire Fox, my supervisor from RML, whether I should try to tape the two halves together, and she recommended that as long as I documented the action in the spreadsheet and only used archival tape it would be a suitable short-term solution. Likewise, a number of the films showed signs of vinegar syndrome, a form of chemical decay wherein acetic acid gas is produced as the film breaks down, which can in turn accelerate deterioration in neighboring films. In these cases, I wrote down what symptoms the reel was exhibiting, and recommended that it be segregated from the rest of the collection until thorough testing could be performed.

Both internships have been valuable on many fronts. First, and perhaps most importantly, they have allowed me to apply the skills that I’ve been developing during my graduate studies in a real-world setting. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most of our training and coursework during the first year, as well as our internship experiences, have been virtual, often requiring students to work on physical inventory projects based on photographs rather than the collections themselves. To be able to physically handle the items in a collection and assess the condition firsthand has brought my understanding and capabilities to a new level. My experience working with organizations that are so integral to their communities has also opened my eyes to how important these types of institutions are, and has reinforced my dedication to the importance of maintaining and preserving regional collections, something that interests me as a future career path in my journey to become a film archivist.

During the Spring 2021 semester, the RML project supported three interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern was hosted by an organization located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Kayla Henry-Griffin, who interned at Los Herederos, a media arts non-profit organization.

For my Spring internship, I had the honor and opportunity to work with Los Herederos. Los Herederos (The Inheritors) is a media arts non-profit organization located in Queens committed to inheriting culture in the digital age and documenting the urban musical landscape in New York City. Los Herederos applies its mission by providing its production services to New York City immigrant communities and by preserving the myriad of cultures and traditions by making these documents accessible. In addition, Los Herederos have several ongoing projects which include the Sonicycle, Creative Masters, DREAMtellers Institute, and Inheritors (more information on these projects can be found at www.losherederos.org). Los Herederos also has an archive. I worked with the Urban Condors Collection, an archive of New York CIty’s Andean music scene.

I came into this internship with not much knowledge on Andean culture, let alone Andean music. However, I hoped to work with Los Herederos because I yearned to work with community archives that centered around BIPOC collections. What I have grown to understand about a collection like the Urban Condors Collection is that this collection is deeply rooted in the Andean community and communication with the community is essential to collect and preserve the heritage, whether that is preserving an Andean instrument, or preserving a born-digital MOV file of Inkarayku performing in a public space.

The Urban Condors Collection started as a graduate thesis research project conducted by Naomi Sturm during her time at Columbia University. Naomi studied Ethnomusicology during her time in Colombia and the Urban Condors Collection grew out of her thesis, “Urban Condors: Andean Music in NYC (1970-Present)”. Now, the Urban Condors Collection has a place within the non-profit organization. The collection represents the New York City Andean music scene, starting as early as the 1970s. The Urban Condors Collection includes the musical legacy of communities from Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Argentina. There are a few different  formats such as MiniDV tapes (a magnetic tape format), optical discs (both CDs and DVDs), and born-digital files (files originating from a digital form). The multiple formats has to do with the fact that the content has been shot and reformatted throughout the years. Many of the optical discs hold older content that originated from MiniDVs and VHS tapes. These transfer refers to the antiquity of the Andean music bands in New York City.

As a RML intern, my duties were to update the inventory spreadsheet and create a new collection assessment with new suggestions on how to preserve the Urban Condors Collection. The goal was to have a more updated and refined documentation of the collection for grant applications. Other than the name of the Andean band, dates and locations, I noticed that I could add more descriptive metadata fields that would refine the inventory. Descriptive metadata is considered descriptive information about specific content; an example of descriptive metadata is the recording date of the content. None of the labels or filenames described the band members or explained what the event was for. The process of updating the inventory led to a recognition and an awareness of how important it is to have a deep understanding of Andean music and Andean bands while cataloging such content. While adding new records to the inventory, I realized that I was lacking the knowledge of these Andean bands and I did not know anything about the band members. 

For instance, much of the Urban Condors Collection holds performances by the band, Inkarayku. I did have knowledge of the current members of Inkarayku, but my internship supervisor and Executive Director of Los Herederos Naomi Sturm reminded me that Inkarayku band members change throughout the years. When playing back the Inkarayku band content, I was aware that I did not know everyone who was performing. I went back to Naomi to schedule a meeting with her to go over the content I played back so that she could identify the band members performing. This was not only helpful, but this process was essential for me to get a better understanding of Inkarayku as a band; sometimes, there will be all the members in one event, and then the next event it would only be a few of the members performing. I found it was important to record the names of the band members not only for honoring the members, but also so that researchers of this collection could discover more about the band starting from its inception. I had multiple conversations with Naomi to discuss the fields I wanted to include in the inventory (fields such as band, performers, and language). I found the conversations also assisted me in finding other missing metadata in the inventory.

With this new knowledge, I was able to add more descriptive metadata that would be beneficial for those who wanted to access content in the Urban Condors Collection. I also found that having records of the band members would be honoring those band members who have contributed to Andean music in New York City. I was able to playback the optical discs and born-digital files in the collection. Playing back the content reminded me of the complexity of the process. My computer, like most computers these days, does not have a CD/DVD player, so getting access to an external player was necessary. Even with an external player, I had to be careful of what type I was using. Utilizing an external Mac DVD player, my computer was unable to read most optical discs in the collection. By switching the player to a more universal external player, I was able to play back all the optical discs in the collection. By playing back content, I was able to see the complexity of the band and I became more aware of the significance of these bands to Andean culture and music.

At the end of my internship, I reflected on all the work I had done. I completed a collection assessment and updated the inventory for the Urban Condors Collection. I also had the chance to create a key and a guide on how to add to the inventory as well. The key acts as a legend or a list of definitions that also holds controlled vocabularies that should be used for cataloging. But what I found to be equally important and essential is what knowledge I received from working with the collection and Los Herederos.

Working with a community archive has its challenges (such as the lack of equipment available to use), but there is so much rich information and content within the archive. The Urban Condors Collection holds very important performances from bands like Inkarayku and Wayra Marca and without documentation of these performances, future bands and artists may not see the brilliance of the Andean music scene in New York City.

What I took from this experience is a new philosophy and perspective on how to care for small archives, especially when they are primarily non-European cultures. I believe before working with a collection, I will commit to doing preliminary research on not only the collection, but the culture that it holds. I find that this practice not only expands my knowledge, but also this practice allows me to fully take care of the collection. I believe there is more to preservation than prioritizing the technical aspects of preservation. What is essential is the access to the collection, as well as knowing more about the culture and history of the collection. Without that knowledge, there will be missing pieces and the collection will not get the proper care and preservation that is needed.

During the Spring 2021 semester, the RML project supported three interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern was hosted by an organization located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Lindsay Miller, who interned at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.

Archival work can be daunting, yet rewarding. We pay attention to details, document everything thoroughly, and circle back on past work. At the heart of all of this work are the collections we care for.  We inspect audiovisual materials, inventory them, house them, and store them safely for future access.  Archival workflows are tailored to the specifics of these collections, so much so that the addition or subtraction of any one step could drastically shift how things are done. So what happens when an archivist starts working somewhere where they can’t physically access the collection? They have to get creative.  

Working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic has taught me a lot about creativity, patience, and the importance of asking questions. When I first started my internship at the R.C. Diocese of Brooklyn Archives in January, I was wary of remote work. I spent my first semester of graduate school in North Carolina, wholly isolated from the rest of my classmates and professors in New York City. It was really easy for me to hide behind a computer screen and fake confidence when in reality I had a million questions, especially during those first few months of the semester.  I especially missed those opportunities to form relationships with others, whether it be my mentors, peers, or even the collections I was working to inventory.  

What attracted me most to this internship was the opportunity to work with a diverse collection of audiovisual materials. Most of these items had never been inventoried or inspected before, so I was also excited to be the one to help establish the fundamental pieces. Prior to my start date, my supervisor shared a basic inventory template for me to work with but I quickly realized it didn’t quite capture all of the metadata we needed. Over time, I began to make changes to this template based on new information I learned in my Collection Management class and my conversations with others. I also picked up new tricks in Excel, such as creating drop-down lists for standardized data such as media formats. 

Let me take you through my workflow. My internship supervisor and I decided early on that our best option was to work with photographs of the materials, as I could then have a better understanding of an item’s housing and general condition. Every few weeks, he would upload a large batch of photos into a shared Google Drive and make sure they were separated by collection. From there, I would begin to organize the photos into separate folders dedicated to each item in the collection. Once a collection was fully organized, I would then move on to inventorying the items in an Excel spreadsheet. Every week I would upload a new version of the spreadsheet to Google Drive. Doing so allowed me to track my progress and provided the archive with additional copies.

Populating this inventory was not without its challenges, especially since I was relying on the photos my supervisor took. At times photos turned out blurry or only showed a small section of the tape. If I couldn’t quite make out what a label said, I would zoom in as far as possible and try to make sense of the squiggle on screen. Those materials that gave me the most trouble were highlighted so that I could come back later with fresh eyes. When I was finished documenting all of my observations, I would then type up an email to my supervisor with any remaining questions and a list of additional photos I needed.  

On the surface, this seemed like a pretty simple workflow, but it took quite a while for me to get into the swing of things. It was also a far cry from how I thought I would be spending my time. To me, the process seemed almost too straightforward and incredibly impersonal. The hundreds of first and last names I worked to document remained just that – names. Who are these people? What are they doing on this VHS tape? How did this tape get here? It’s fun to contemplate these questions, but I wasn’t able to consult other collection papers to learn more information because they — like the tapes — had not yet been digitized. I found this disconnect to be frustrating and wondered if my work was suffering as a result. I got better at writing down my questions and made a point to email my supervisor every week with updates on my progress.  I shared numerous drafts of my inventory with others and even shared my screen in class, a task I have always found to be quite daunting. 

The pandemic may have taken away our ability to work together in person, but it did not take away our generosity. I am in constant awe of my colleagues’ patience and kindness despite these bizarre times. No question ever felt too small or stupid to be asked. My work greatly benefited from this and while I wish I’d known this sooner, I’m happy to have these new collaborative skills and trust in my colleagues as I continue to navigate graduate school and this new field.

I completed my internship at the Diocese back in May. My final deliverables consisted of the following: an inventory for 10 audiovisual collections, an inventory key, a brief collection assessment, and a summary that describes everything I completed over the course of the semester and where it could be found within Google Drive. Looking back, I am honestly amazed that I was able to accomplish so much given the current circumstances. And there is still much work to be done! The benefit of documenting my progress means that someone (maybe even another intern *wink wink*) can easily pick up where I have left off. And hey, maybe by then there will be some sense of normalcy in the world and they can truly explore the collections for themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Spring 2021 semester, the RML project supported three interns from the NYU Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. Each intern was hosted by an organization located on Long Island, which includes Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Kings counties. The following post is from Ana Salas, who interned at Queens Museum.

For my first internship, I worked at Queens Museum as part of the Regional Media Legacies Project (RML) which is supported by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. My duties primarily included updating the inventory and performing inspections. To update the inventory, I opened every box and pulled out every item; this way I could ensure the item was still in the same location and appeared to be in good condition. 

While updating the inventory I found films with mold on them. 

I had learned about mold in my Conservation and Preservation class during my first semester in the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program at NYU. We learned how mold can be detrimental and dangerous to both the items it affects and the archivists handling them. I had seen mold on media before on my grandma’s old photographs she kept stored in a cardboard box in her room. She lives in Costa Rica, where houses don’t typically have temperature control or humidity control. Due to the constant high relative humidity levels, the inactive mold on my grandma’s old photographs became active. Everything I had ever learned and seen about mold on media was terrifying. 

Naturally, I was startled when I saw the mold on the films at Queens Museum, and I wondered where and for how long the films had been stored. The labels dated the films between 1960 and 1965, so I assume in the sixty or so years it took for the films to come into my life, they probably lived in a moist basement with little ventilation. I knew the films needed to be cleaned right away before the mold could continue to grow and spread. But out of everything I had learned and seen about mold, I never learned how to get rid of it. I quickly began my research to find a solution. 

From my initial research, I learned that most sources will tell you to seek professional help when faced with mold, but they don’t really tell you what is considered a ‘professional’ or where to look for one. I assumed a film lab would be considered a ‘professional,’ but I quickly realized film labs and mold remediation can be expensive. I tried to look for organizations in the area that were willing to do the mold remediation at a lower cost. My internship supervisor thought if we could find an organization that could use this mold remediation to create documentation or teach a workshop, then in exchange, we wouldn’t have to pay full price for the procedure. 

I performed a series of Google searches but came up with nothing. I knew what I was looking for was probably out there and I simply wasn’t performing the right queries. I also knew this was a matter of urgency and I couldn’t spend more time rearranging the same set of words to see which combination would yield the results I wanted.  

As a first-year student, my list of contacts is short but I decided to reach out for advice to those I know. Asking for help isn’t always my first response, not because I don’t think I need it but because I don’t want to bother people with questions that may seem like they have a simple answer. In my short time in the AV preservation field, I have realized that sometimes asking for help first is much more productive than trying to find the solution yourself. The term audiovisual encompasses a myriad of different formats, all with oddly specific needs; that means we can’t all be experts at everything! Everyone has different strengths and expertise they collect through their time as AV archivists and that means we often have to rely on each other to complete tasks and overcome challenges. 

I first consulted with the RML project team, specifically Claire Fox, who suggested I contact Rob Anen. Rob is also an RML fellow who has done mold remediation in the past. Without hesitation I drafted an email to Rob, attached pictures of the monstrous mold to the email and waited for a response.

As I mentioned above, everything I had learned so far about mold had been bad, so naturally, I expected a negative response. Anything from “there is nothing we can do”, to “the only solution is paying hundreds of dollars per film to salvage them”. Rob responded promptly, and to my surprise, he was incredibly calm about the situation. He said everything was going to be okay and said we just needed some nice weather and isopropyl alcohol; his confidence in being able to help with the issue let me know everything was going to be okay. 

We set up a time to do the mold remediation in April. When the time came we brought the film inspection bench outside, and together we cleaned the mold off the films. The materials required to perform a mold remediation include 99% isopropyl alcohol, and a non-abrasive cloth.  The process is simple, the film reel is mounted onto the film rewind, and the cloth is soaked in the isopropyl alcohol and used to clean the film as it is being wound onto the take-up reel. 

It’s important to note here that a specialist should always be consulted before attempting to remediate mold on your own since you may be dealing with different variables, such as different types of mold or a damaged film. Additionally, safety measures need to be taken such as performing the remediation in a well ventilated area, and wearing latex gloves and a face covering, preferably an N95 mask. After performing the mold remediation the films need to be housed in clean film reels and most importantly, the films must be stored in a temperature controlled environment to prevent the risk of mold in the future. 

After just a couple of emails, I had found a viable and relatively simple solution to what before seemed like a challenge I was not going to overcome. I learned not just how to remediate mold myself, but how important asking for help and being open to collaborating with others is. Of course, the answer won’t always be as straightforward, sometimes there may not even be an answer. As archivists, we face different challenges daily, some harder than others, but we are also part of a community that is not just ready, but eager to help each other in overcoming those challenges.

Over the months we’ve been working with our Regional Media Legacies (RML) site partners, the RML team has encountered more analog audiovisual collections than digital collections. Analog materials include formats like 16mm films, VHS videotapes, and compact audio cassettes, all representing content created many years ago (in one case, one film from as early as 1915!). This focus on analog materials is unsurprising for us: our site partners are primarily historical societies with collections from the mid to late 20th century or earlier, and digital media wasn’t widely adopted until the mid-2000s. 

What this means is that all of our site partners have a shared need to migrate their analog collection materials to a digital media format to ensure their longevity. This migration practice is widely known as “digitization,” and is a common archival practice where transfers of analog materials are made in a digital format that can be preserved, accessed, and distributed. Digitization is just one part of the larger process of collection management (how we handle collections, preserve them, and prepare them for access), and works in tandem with digital preservation planning.

Digitization is important for analog media because of two primary concerns: obsolescence and degradation. Obsolescence refers to the fact that legacy audiovisual formats (16mm film, VHS videotape, etc.) always need a media player (like a projector or a VCR) in order to view the content they carry. As time passes and players are phased out of production, they become increasingly difficult to find, making it difficult to play back their associated media formats. Degradation refers to the fact that media items are vulnerable to chemical degradation, particularly when they’re not kept in climate-controlled environments.

Creating digital copies of analog media stabilizes content and brings audiovisual collections into the present. While some films and tapes may still be able to be played back on their original media, the creation of a digital transfers ensures that contemporary media players (like Quicktime, VLC Media Player, or Windows Media Player) can play back the content, and additionally provides a copy that can be made accessible to researchers or other community members without damaging the original films and tapes.

While the incentive to digitize audiovisual collection is clear, the process of digitization itself can be complex and expensive. A lack of budget is a major deterrent to any long-term preservation project, and the expense of digitization is a major barrier to preserving audiovisual collections. It makes sense that digitization is expensive: the process of digitization is a specialized skill, particularly when making high-quality digital copies (often referred to as “masters” or “preservation copies”) that can be used to make a variety of access copies (lower-quality or compressed digital files, including files that can be uploaded to platforms like YouTube).

While limited budgets are a major barrier, there are a few key strategies that can be used to ensure that your digitization project reaches its full potential, and can even pave the way for future digitization projects. Below, we outline a few strategies we’ve learned directly from working with our RML partners.

Tip #1: Create a storage plan before digitization

One of the most important parts of audiovisual archiving is providing a secure, long-term storage environment where digital files are kept. At a minimum, this means that you have a designated storage device (like an external hard drive or an internal hard drive of a reliable workstation) that is monitored by a staff member or volunteer where your new digital files can be saved. Even still, we encourage our RML site partners to strive for preservation-level storage.

Preservation-level digital storage at a minimum requires redundant backups; in other words, for every digital file you have, create one additional (ideally, two additional copies) of that file. At least one of these copies should additionally be stored in a different geographic location than the others, so if one set of files is damaged or lost, at least one copy will be safe. Files and the storage media (hard drives, etc.) they’re saved on can be impacted by a number of potential risks: natural disasters, device failure, and human error are three examples. With redundant backups and geographic separation, the potential for irreparable loss is immensely reduced.

Archival digitization is a necessary, if expensive, investment in your archival collections. Without creating a storage plan ahead of the digitization process, stewards risk losing access to that investment. Consulting with archivists to create a storage plan ahead of digitization is a key component of collections care, and is an important step toward preserving your collections for generations to come.

Tip #2: Choose a sample set of materials to digitize.

It’s logical to want to digitize a collection in its entirety. For some of our RML partners who only have 5-10 videotapes, this is a real possibility! Other RML partners have over 100, or even upwards of 10,000 items to digitize. These numbers represent a significant expense, and it can be discouraging to know how or where to begin.

One way to begin the process of digitizing your collections in a lower-cost way is to choose a sample set of materials that you’d like to prioritize for digitization. While choosing fewer items to digitize is an obvious way to reduce costs (fewer items = lower cost), it has incidental benefits, particularly for organizations that are just getting started with digitizing their collections. 

First, the process of prioritizing particular items allows stewards to re-familiarize themselves with their audiovisual collections. While it may be time-consuming, the process of going through your collections item by item could allow you to remove items that you may not want to digitize (like commercial titles or duplicate copies), which will reduce your digitization budget in the long run. 

Second, sending out a small set of items to digitize allows stewards to understand the digitization process on a smaller scale, both in terms of the steps involved and in terms of the deliverables received. Stewards may find that they have preferred methods of shipping or delivering items to vendors, or realize that timelines need to be articulated in a specific way. Stewards may also realize that they may or may not need access copies made for a variety of reasons. Might you need access copies that can be uploaded to YouTube, or that could be projected onto a large screen, or maybe you’re capable of creating your own access copies? Sometimes you won’t know what you need until you go through the digitization process for the first time, and doing so with fewer items means you learn those experiential lessons on a smaller scale.

Tip #3: Choose a vendor you trust.

Our third and final tip is to work with a vendor that you trust. The RML project currently oversees some small digitization projects with vendors we have vetted and trust, and some of our site partners have their own vendors they trust to perform strong digitization work. Generally speaking, if collection stewards are embarking on digitization projects on their own, we highly recommend calling potential vendors, asking questions, requesting estimates, and talking about timelines. Taking some time to get to know your vendor provides you with an opportunity to put your mind at ease as you send your archival materials off-site. Ideally, stewards are sending materials to vendors that they trust to handle historical materials with care and respect!

Even if you’re working on small-scale or one-time projects, digitization is often a years-long process. With that in mind, it’s important to work toward finding a vendor you can see yourself working with for years to come. Vendors can be great allies as stewards work toward preserving archival collections, particularly as obsolescence and degradation become more severe issues over the coming years, and as technology continues to evolve. Even still, technology aside, RML always recommends finding people to work with who you trust, whether they’re digitization vendors, conservators, volunteer catalogers, interns, or otherwise. Building trust in archival work is key to long-term preservation, and no technology is more important than that.

Mold, a word that elicits many negative reactions, unless you’re talking about cheese. I get the feelings of concern surrounding the appearance of mold, and feel the same way, even when it concerns cheese. But mold is a natural occurrence in many regards, including in film collections, and while not always ideal (in some cases it is dangerous!) the important takeaway here is that the advent of mold should not be viewed as an emergency that halts all intended work with the affected media. 

Over the course of my time as a fellow for the Regional Media Legacies (RML) project, I’ve come in contact with mold more than once, and have become desensitized to seeing it at this point. I am not a mold expert and my intention is not to be dismissive of the presence of mold. Expertise in mold in an archival setting is very important since discovering it is quite common.

I’d like to use this post to share my findings with mold as an audiovisual archivist doing collections work with under-resourced collections, and where that experience falls on the spectrum of audiovisual preservation.

In early 2020, I was in the process of inspecting film for a small historical organization when a staff member discovered additional films while they were reorganizing items in the basement. I was called down to inspect and assess the films, and determined they were indeed most definitely covered in mold. The musty smell emanating from the cans gave away the mold immediately. Then as I opened each can and the white fuzzy evidence confirmed our suspicions. Another common form of film decay that makes its presence known through a smell, but should not be confused with mold, is vinegar syndrome. This smell is far more powerful and can sometimes be evident even without opening a film can. 

After some research and discussion with the staff, they allowed me to remediate the moldy films. I already possessed 99% isopropyl alcohol that I had purchased for a previous project. I also purchased a non-abrasive cloth from a local hardware store. I moved my portable film inspection bench outside on a nice day. It’s worth noting here that when dealing with moldy objects, you should do so in a well-ventilated area, and nothing really beats a mild sunny day. I tested the cloth on a piece of film to ensure that it did not scratch it. Had the cloth actually scratched the film I would not have moved forward. An important rule to follow as an archivist is to do no harm. 

Before I continue, I want to note that it is important to wear a mask, N95 preferably, as well as latex gloves. Wash your hands thoroughly after remediation and do not touch your face after holding moldy items. 

Confident with the new cloth, I readied the first film on the inspection bench, then lightly soaked it in isopropyl alcohol. I held the cloth gently around the film and wound the film onto a take-up reel. I then wiped the original reel with alcohol and wound the film back on. This process removed the visible mold. I proceeded to perform this process on about a dozen reels of 16mm film. I made sure the alcohol evaporated before placing the films back in their cans. 

Four months later, I inspected the films for mold or any sign of effect from the alcohol. I did not see or smell any mold, or see any change to the film image. To this day, there are no signs of mold. It’s also important to note that these films are no longer stored in the basement and have been moved to an upper-level floor in the building. They have also been rehoused in new archival cans and taken off the metal reels and wound onto archival film cores. Environmentally controlled archival storage may not be possible, but moving media items out of spaces more likely to encounter flooding or fluctuating temperatures and humidity can go a long way. 

Below is a before and after of one of the reels:

My process in becoming comfortable with mold began with doing basic research, which demonstrated how common mold is and why it shows up in the first place. For mold to grow, two things need to be present: a food source for the mold and constant moisture. These two conditions together are a breeding ground for mold and are also the common conditions of most basements and many attics. 

It is also important to note that mold never really dies. Mold is either active or inactive. You can render mold inactive by drying out the affected area, but the second a moldy film is reintroduced to a moist environment the mold will become active and continue to grow. The only way to render mold harmless is to remove it from the equation completely. There are also many different types of mold. I have only ever seen white mold on films before. I’ve never seen black mold on a film, but can’t say definitively what might be possible! 

The gelatin binder on all film formats is a prime food source for mold. And once a single film item is affected, all nearby film formats are in danger. Magnetic media isn’t safe from mold either! The remediation technique I used should be performed by someone comfortable with film, whether through archival training or experience working with film in a production environment. This technique would not be appropriate for video or audiotape, but advice related to storage would be similar.

My education and instincts lead me to this remediation process, but it was helpful to find validation amongst the photographer set with a post like this: “How to Clean Your Negatives” by Dillon Wallace

Additionally, the project manager of the RML project reached out to a few colleagues who have dealt with mold on film. While best practices tend to lean more toward engaging a professional vendor for cleaning, using a more toxic cleaning agent yourself (if you can get approved for it), or foregoing cleaning agents at all and prioritizing cold storage and digitization – our final takeaway was that my methodology achieved the intended goal of mold remediation. This lower-cost solution is particularly important in a scenario where a higher-cost vendor solution was not possible. Not remediating the films this way would have resulted in zero-intervention for a further unknown length of time, allowing for the mold to continue its potentially destructive course. 

Since professional mold remediation can be costly and out of reach, it’s best to take measures to avoid this situation as much as possible by keeping your films in a dry area. A cool, dry, secure space is essential for all media items – it’s great for any items, quite frankly. If you’re reading this, and you know you have media items in a basement, attic, or garage – make a plan to check up on these items, and find a new location. In an office setting – a room with no windows and low traffic. In a home – a hall closet would be preferable. Any space where you notice the conditions are more stable and dry throughout the year. 

Keeping in mind that mold can reactivate, the films I cleaned have been prioritized for digitization but it’s not always possible to jump ahead to this step. In the meantime, we keep the films stored as best we can and check up on them when we can. Professionally sanctioned best practices are important to learn, but cannot always be implemented (and in some cases are not appropriate), and our goal is to assist project partners not only by performing conservation and preservation work but also by presenting reasonable options and empowering them to move forward even without our assistance.

By Robert Anen, RML Fellow & Marie Lascu, RML Project Manager

Welcome to the premier blog post of the Regional Media Legacies (RML) project! This project is funded by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. Now that we are beginning the second year of this funding cycle, we have decided to create this blog in order to acquaint you with not just the collections we have been introduced to but also the stories that go along with them as well.

I’m Robert Anen, an audiovisual archivist, a graduate of NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program, and the first appointed Research Fellow for the RML project. The RML team has spent the last year reaching out across Long Island, Brooklyn, and Queens with great success. Not every organization contacted possesses an audiovisual collection, but those that do pay dividends, in the cultural sense that is.

The context of a collection is essential for understanding why we are all putting so much effort into preserving these pieces of history. Sometimes when we encounter a collection, there is no documented context at all, no provenance(the origins or history of an item) to speak of. The who, what, where, when, why, and how are either completely missing, lost to time, or only partially recorded. 

As a Research Fellow and as a person who loves a good mystery, I make it my mission to fill in the context gaps of collections I begin to inventory and inspect. With the correct equipment, I can take a stack of film cans that an organization had previously known nothing about, and through the inspection and repair process not only begin to conserve the object but also begin to examine the content and fill in the gaps needed to better understand the collection and subjects in front of the camera. Beautiful stories can be woven using this information. This is one of those cases.

Towards the end of January this year, I began working on the film collection of the Sea Cliff Village Museum located in Sea Cliff, New York, a small old coastal town on the north shore of Nassau County. This is the first collection we were truly able to dive into under the RML project. There was no provenance available in the museum’s records. Some of the film cans had notes on the front of the container but you can’t trust what the notes say at face value until you examine the content found on each reel of film. For example, let’s take the photo on the left of a label on a film can; it hints that the film collection does indeed come from Nassau County. Roslyn, NY is a town just four miles south of Sea Cliff. This film collection found its home at the Museum some time between its opening in 1979 to 2019 when Courtney Chambers, the current Director of the Museum began working there. 

The collection is made up of twelve reels of 16mm film. We knew nothing about this collection other than the information on the film can labels which I approached like a cinematic Sherlock Holmes.  A good archivist must approach everything with some suspicion when inspecting and inventorying any collection since reels can be swapped out of cans and easily placed in an incorrect can or the labels found on a film can be written years or even decades after the fact. That being said, there is information I could infer simply by looking at the metal reels and the film print. The above image of the reels matches this image here on the right.  Knowing the vintage of the reels also allowed me to infer that whoever purchased the Kodak reels and Kodak film in this collection was likely of a higher class status than the average person at the time. Why would I assume that? The Kodascope Projector in this image cost $180.00 in 1928, a 50-foot roll of film cost $4.00, and the camera for that film would have cost $150.00. Adjusted for inflation by today’s standards, that would make the projector $2,735.98, the film $60.80 and the camera $2,279.98. According to IRS data for 1928 the average income for an Individual was $6,191.81. This would make an individual’s weekly pay $119.07 before taxes. A home movie camera, a projector, and one roll of film to use in that camera would cost almost an entire month’s income. This makes it easy to conclude that the person who originally owned this collection at that time in 1928 made more than the average person and was likely of higher class status.

As I began inspecting and inventorying the collection, each reel revealed a little more information about the family they belonged to. The films were most certainly home movies. The first reel revealed a partial exterior of a home. The third reel revealed the full exterior of the same home pictured on the left. The home was the only house visible on the property and seemed to have an extremely long driveway. The film also revealed the very end of the driveway, a detail that turned out to be key. 

I had the What: a home movie, the How: this person had the physical means, and the When: 1925 to 1930 respectively. I made it my mission to figure out Where this house was, Who was behind the camera, and Why these images were captured on film. When approaching questions like this, you have to think of different ways in which to figure out the answers, and in some cases unconventional tools are needed to do your research. Since the dates on the film cans matched the manufacturing years found on the film prints, I decided to trust the information found on the labels of the film cans.

Using the images above, I joined and posted in a Facebook group called “You’re Probably From Roslyn If Part 2………..” I hoped that current and former Roslyn residents could identify either the house or entrance to the driveway. There were a handful of responses initially, but no one was able to identify the house. That was until a former Roslyn resident commented that she thought the posts at the entrance of the driveway looked familiar. She revealed that she had grown up next door to the Shibley Day Camp and that the image looked like the entrance to the camp. A quick search on Google Maps revealed she was correct! The same brick posts remain in the exact same place as they did in 1926 at 175 Warner Avenue in Roslyn, New York. The Where.

Now that I had the Where, I could move onto the Who. In 1925, New York State conducted a State census. The probability of finding out who lived in this house at the time the home movies were created was very high, but the houses on Warner Ave in 1925 did not have numbers associated with them yet so the Who was still elusive to me. I then decided to go over to the Shibley Day Camp and drive right up to the house. It was the exact same house visible in the home movies and I was thrilled to see it still erect. This is when I turned to the Bryant Library, the oldest continuing library in Nassau County that is also located in Roslyn, NY. The library’s archivist, Carol Clarke, was able to identify the house as the former home of William Prentice Willetts (1890-1964). According to census records and other documents found on Ancestry.com, Willetts was born May 13th, 1890 in Skaneateles, New York. He grew up in upstate New York and Brooklyn, and married Christine Newhall Clark in 1915. He served in WWI and was principally stationed in Mineola, NY, Washington, DC, and Montgomery, AL, was assigned to work in an aviation repair shop and was eventually promoted to Captain. He did not serve overseas or ever engage in any combat, and he was honorably discharged on December 17th, 1918. 

According to the 1930 United States Federal Census, Willets was a broker at a bank at the time the home movies were filmed. This certainly seems like a well-paying job and would have allowed him to afford the materials needed for the home movies: the film, the camera, the projector. Willetts himself does not appear in any of the home movies, which could mean he is the person holding the camera. A young woman and two small children do appear throughout. The children could be his eldest daughter and son, Jean and Joseph, who would have been 10 and 8 respectively. The Who.

The Why is the final and larger question that as a researcher, or you as a reader, may never know that answer to without explicitly asking him, the Who, that question. This is now impossible since William Willetts died in 1964. Why did he capture these home movies in the first place? One could assume he did this because he had the means to. Again, this was an expensive endeavor in 1926. Home movies were a brand-new hobby in the mid-1920s so he may have been the type of person who loved the latest gadget and had to try it. William may have bought it for a trip he was taking, or a family event he simply wanted to capture and remember forever. As my research continues, I also hope to discover how these films finally made their way to the museum. 

I hope you have enjoyed this inaugural post. I continue to work on Sea Cliff Village Museum’s film collection, so stay tuned for future blog posts. As the Regional Media Legacies project continues from 2020-2021, check this space for more stories of the partners we have worked with, and the collections we have worked on and hope to help bring to light across Long Island, Brooklyn, and Queens.