Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

December, 1 945 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE 37 A County Audio-Visual Center BY JAMES McPherson Director, Kern County Film Library, Bakersfield, California In Kern County, California, we have been working on a fourpoint program of audio-visual development : 1. First, we have emphasized the creation of an understanding among the teachers and administrators of the county of the educational values to be found in the use of audio-visual materials. This understanding of the value of these newer materials is the chief ingredient of our in-service training program because it must exist before teachers will want to learn how to use audio-visual equipment and will plan their teaching in terms of audio-visual presentations. 2. Second, we have attempted to get a wide selection of audiovisual materials that will be helpful to teachers and to secure them in sufficient quantity to enable each teacher to get what she wants, when she wants it. During the past school year our county teachers were able to get an average of 96.4 percent of the items they ordered, when they ordered them. This has enabled teachers to plan for the use of audio-visual materials with a great certainty that they will receive the materials to use according to their plans. In addition to materials that must be purchased, the audio-visual center serves as a year-long depository for numerous loan films and other materials. Thus, all county schools are enabled to get the materials they need from one place and with one order. This has saved the schools endless correspondence and has also en James McPherson, Kern County Film Library Director, Bakersfield, California. abled the center to protect the schools from some of the undesirable “free materials” that flood the country and still to give them the use of materials in this class that have real educational merit. 3. Third, we have placed a guide to all materials in the hands of each teacher. This guide is published anew each school year and is so organized that materials may be selected according to the unit being taught, according to the topic being taught, or from an alphabetical list. Each item is briefly described as to content and possible uses. Grade levels on which the item is apt to be of the greatest value are also given. In addition, full information concerning available equipment a n d services is included, together with instructions for ordering materials, equipment, and serv ices. Although the publication of this guide is expensive, each costing about $1.50, its importance as a means of keeping teachers informed about currently available materials is so great that a complete yearly revision is justified. 4. Fourth, we work in every possible way to encourage schools in the county to maintain all equipment needed for the convenient and easy use of audio-visual materials. A 1 1 schools are urged to purchase needed equipment. Where schools are too small to afford some types of equipment, the audio-visual center circulates this equipment both as a means of providing teachers with equipment needed now and also as a means of demonstrating to schools what their needs in the way of equipment are. Thus, numerous schools that began by using loan equipment have found it desirable to buy their own equipment in order to meet a demand by their teachers for more frequent use of this equipment. The audio-visual center maintains an equipment maintenance center that adjusts, cleans, and repairs all equipment at no cost to the schools beyond a proportionate sum paid by schools for the services of the cooperative audio-visual library. Every effort is being made to convince individual school districts that the materials placed in the audio-visual center are actually a part of the curriculum materials of the schools although they may be housed in a central library. This point of view is