Business screen magazine (1946)

Security A(Jministratii>n. the L'.S. Office of Education, and the L'.S. Public Health Service: the Department of Housini; and Urban Development; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; the U.S. Information Agency; the I'.S. Office of Economic Opportunity; the I'.S, Post Office Department; the U.S. Department of State; the Department of Transportation, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the. Federal Highway .Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard; and the Veterans Administration. NAC also sells foreign language tapes and texts for the Foreign Service Institute of the Department of State. During its first year of operation NAC anticipates that schools, colleges, industry, other groups and individuals will purchase appro.ximately 10,000 16mm prints. 2,000 8mm prints, hundreds of filmstrips and slide sets, some video tapes, and a few hundred foreign language tape sets. A good start has been made. Sales are running higher than anticipated. The most popular sale item has been NASA's moon walk film Eagle Has Landed: the Flight of Apollo II. More than 1,500 prints of this historic film have been purchased by individuals and institutions around the world from the National Audiovisual Center. Free loan film distribution is a third audiovisual support service offered by NAC to Federal agencies and the public. This service is "free" to the borrower but the sponsoring Federal agency pays NAC's costs. Comparable commercial service is known as "sponsored film distribution." Most Federal agencies that produce motion pictures use an "in house" type of film distribution system. A few of these systems are very good, others are "so-so." A growing number of agencies are using commercial distribution companies. NAC encourages the use of an efficient, professional system. NAC is now handling films on free loan for three units of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare: Social and Rehabilitation Service, the National Institute of Dental Health, and the National Institute of Mental Health. Three other agencies using this service are the Agency for International Development, the Department of Labor's Job Corps, and the General Services Administration. An interesting development in this area is the establishment of a Narcotics and Drug Abuse Film Library by the National Institute of Mental Health. NAC is operating this library of popular films for NIMH. In addition to providing a central information and sales point and offering a centra! free loan and rental audiovisual distribution service, the National Audiovisual Center also provides, to Federal agencies, if requested, a type of audiovisual technical assistance. This service is designed to help those agencies that need advice and assistance relating to the production, processing, and distribution of audiovisual materials. Many Federal agencies and offices do not have professional audiovisual staff members. Nor do they have contracting officers familiar in detail with prt)ducing, processing, and distributing motion pictures and other audiovisual materials. NAC's technical assistance staff is available to assist them if they want such help. In addition the staff is now endeavoring to develop basic ordering agreements for motion picture production services, motion picture laboratory services and motion picture distribution services. When completed by GSA these agreements will be available for use by all Federal agencies on a voluntary basis. Other such agreements may be developed in other audiovisual areas if desired by enough agencies. Commercial producers, laboratories, and distributors appear to desire and welcome this type of service. It should result in more and better audiovisual materials being produced and distributed for the Federal Government. Do these four services make the National Audiovisual Center a one-stop Government audiovisual service center? Not quite. What about stock frontage? In the near future NAC plans to have the beginnings of a central motion picture stock footage depository for all non-military Federal agencies. If a modern information storage and retrieval system is installed and if this system can be made compatible with the one(s) used by Army, Navy, and Air Force Film Depositories so that a stock searcher can search and retrieve information on all Government stock footage at either installation, then NAC will have a one-stop Government audiovisual service center. Considering these services and the archival audiovisual holdings of the National Archives, the audiovisual inventory of the National Archives and Records Service should be almost as old as the art of film making and almost as up-to-date as the latest Government film release. The objective of the National Audiovisual Center is to serve Federal Government agencies and the public and to achieve more efficient and wider use of Government audiovisual materials. It should prove to be a valuable resource center. • Les Greenberg and Bill Taylor of the information branch review NAC plans. In the print inspection section, Ralph Collett, chief of the NAC sales branch checks a print with Elizabeth West. NAC film shipping department has been busier and grown faster than anticipated. JUNE, 1970 31