Moving Picture Age (Jan-Dec 1922)

February, 1922 MOVING PICTURE AGE 23 'Every negative is given a classification number. This number, known as a call number, appears on each slide and in printed catalogues and is used by borrowers in ordering slides. The call number also determines the position of the slide in the cabinet. Slides are filed vertically. Primarily slides are not made up into fixed sets for lecture use. Negatives are accumulated through a period of several years until a comparatively large field of study has been covered. Then the material is organized and a pamphlet is printed giving an order of arrangement adapted to the subject, full titles with call numbers, notes, and bibliography. Borrowers of a wide range of interests are served. It is assumed that each one knows best what slides he wishes to use. He makes his own selection. Schools Alfred W. Abrams very generally order by. call number. Partly to accommodate organizations wishing slides for a somewhat popular use and partly to facilitate office work, "sets" selected from classified slides are made up and lent as such. These sets are always a secondary consideration. Teaching Notes Provided Formal lectures to accompany sets of slides are not prepared, but teaching notes are furnished, usually in printed form, pointing out what may profitably be noted in the pictures and asking questions that require observation to find an answer or that suggest a problem to be presented and worked out through a study of the pictures. It is believed that the value of picture expression lies almost wholly in the mental reaction that can be stimulated and directed, and that mere statement of facts about the general subject while the picture is on the screen has little educational or even entertainment value. Whom Served. At the present time any school, organization, or individual may have the use of slides for strictly free instruction within the state. At first the use of this material was confined to New York City and state normal schools. Later service was extended to school systems in towns of 5,000 inhabitants or over, but only indirectly to smaller communities. For the past dozen years or more the aim has been to give through simple regulations the greatest possible facility to everyone in the use of this material. There has been a steady increase in demand. In 1907 the whole number of slides lent for the year was 30,000 ; for the current year loans will run above half a million. The reckoning is made by the number of slides sent out, and no account is taken of the fact that they are often used several times before being returned. Direct Service. Slides are sent directly to the institution or person that makes application for them. But a borrower, a library, for example, may sub-lend for use in the community. Slides, however, are never routed from one community to another. It is assumed that slides are wanted for use as a means of conducting some study determined upon for a particular time. ^'Period of Eagm. The ordinary period of loan is one week. An effort is made tc\have borrowers realize that no lantern slides should be used until the one who is to present them has become familiar with them "and knows the specific purpose for which he is to use each one. Vague general statements are not part of visual instruction. A person must first himself visualize what a picture represents before he can, through it, lead to a visualization by another. This period satisfies the needs of persons wishing to use slides for a so-called lecture. Special Loan Periods For teaching institutions there is a four-week plan of service. The school may retain shipments of slides four weeks, provided it orders regularly each month and uses the slides a few at a time in the classroom as the topics of the course are reached. As a means of better establishing the meaning of classroom use of visual aids to instruction, a special set of 237 slides on South America is allowed to remain in a school for a quarter of the school year for the use of a particular teacher. Special conditions as to equipment and use are imposed. No recent reckoning has been made to show what proportion of the slides are lent for classroom use. Roughly speaking, it amounts to about one half. Early Beginning. The Education Department of the State of New York as early as 1886 began through legislative appropriations to encourage visual instruction. The work has been carried on for 35 years. The aggregate annual appropriation has run as high as $50,000. The current appropriation is $15,000 for additions to the collection of visual aids — negatives, slides, and prints — with at least an -equal sum expended for salaries, office equipment, supplies, printing, arid distribution. In 1911 a fire destroyed the accumulations that had been made up to that time. The slides previously offered were mostly travel views intended chiefly for popular lecture use. The present collection includes a much wider range of subjects. It is based primarily on the school course of instruction, but is also adopted for extension work. Ultimate Results. A commercial concern or an organization formed to carry on a particular work may be tempted to seek immediate, ends and be warranted in doing so. A bureau maintained to serve a large constituency and operating for a long period of time should lay stress upon what can ultimately be accomplished. It should constantly check its activities to insure results that are unquestionably worth while and permanent in character. It should resist every impulse to do the thing that is expedient merely for the time being. It should have faith in the ultimate worth of what it is undertaking. This is particularly true in the field of visual instruction, which at present is not clearly defined as to purposes and method and is subject to attempts toward commercialization. North Carolina Sets a Notable Example The Department of Education of the Division of School Extension of North Carolina is doing strikingly constructive work in sending motion pictures to its citizens in the counties farthest from the centers of education. The difficulties of distance were overcome by taking the ex hibitions to the towns in the backwoods districts. Projectors, generating plant, screen, and all other necessary equipment were mounted on three-quarter-ton trucks, and each truck worked on such schedule as allowed it to give an exhibition in each locality twice a month. The plan has been so entirely successful that the Department of Education now has twenty county units working on full time, with a monthly attendance of 45,000 people.