Film and Radio Guide (Oct 1945-Jun 1946)

56 FILM AND RADIO GUIDE Volume XII, No. 8 office are specialists in sources of materials and in evaluation of these sources. The centralized booking of films on a campus is directly parallel to the established practice of centralized ordering of books for all university departments by the university library. Purchase and Maintenance of Equipment A centralized visual education service can save the university large sums of money in the purchase and maintenance of the equipment, provided it is given authority over and control of such equipment, whether portable or permanently placed. All projection and sound reproducing equipment coming on the market should be scientifically tested by sound and projection engineers who are experienced in the practical uses of this type of equipment. Further savings can be accomplished by standardization of equipment. A centralized service should also maintain a supply of common replacement parts and a maintenance shop for replacing all equipment owned by the university, from microphones to 35mm sound projectors. Dist-ribution of Audio-Visual Aids to Departments Another activity which should be centralized at a university is the distribution of teaching films to the departments. The film libraries are usually operated by the extension division. Because many universities have had extension film libraries long before the campus visual-aids service was considered, the latter is often an expansion of the work of the film library and under the direction of the extension division. When no one else would undertake campus service, the extension divisions have been willing to organize this work. Logically, however, providing visual aids in the campus classes is not properly the function of the extension division. Institutions of higher education would save funds and avoid confusion by establishing centralized visual education services. Recently some university and college libraries have become interested in providing a central campus service in audiovisual materials. There are several objections to placing this work under the library. First, audio-visual education comprises not only materials, but also engineering services for equipment. They should never be separated into two departments; the faculty cannot be bothered with calling two offices in order to plan a classroom showing. All audio-visual materials and equipment should be centralized in one department if the program is to succeed. Providing engineering services is foreign to the traditional functions of a library. Second, the field of audio-visual education is already too specialized and too complex to be included as a subdivision of the library. The director’s training should be in education and liberal arts rather than in library subjects. Third, visual education has had to fight the tyranny of the printed word in order to make a place for itself in teaching methods. It has won recognition in spite of — rather than because of — the attitude of libraries to it. Today it still needs enthusiastic sponsors, and most libraries do not fill this requirement. Production of AudioVisual Aids A centralized service should also provide the facilities and staff for the production of materials of all types from slides and charts to sound motion pictures. The production of teaching films at universities has been going on for decades, but in the last 5 years there has been a greatly increased interest in this work. Many leaders in visual education feel that the universities will become centers of production not only of specialized films needed at the university level, but also of the more generalized films needed at lower instructional levels. The increasing interest in university production has also been accompanied by an increase in the amateur efforts of individual faculty members. Their films are sometimes well produced and invaluable additions to university film libraries, but in 90 percent of the cases the amateurishness of the photography, of the planning of the production, and of the subsequent editing and later production stages, has consigned the films to the storage shelf or the trash can after the film has been shown a few times. It should be the function of a visual education service to provide a production staff which will see to it that the quality of productions is kept high enough so that the films will have permanent value. This does not mean that fully professional Hollywood quality should be insisted upon. On the contrary, universities cannot afford the commercial prices in production which are concomitant to this highest quality. The university production should, on the one hand, avoid commercial standards and costs and, on the other hand, avoid the great waste of amateur efforts. The production of motion jiictures is work for specialists in the field.