See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning (1945)

FILMS IN Health & Welfare MUSIC • ART • DRAMA ATHLETICS . and Physical Education in FIL 1949-50 Magazine Program to Advance Visual Education RECOGNIZES NEED FOR PUBLICATIONS TO SERVE WIDER FIELDS PROGRESS IN AUDIO-VISUAL utilization within our schools and the comiminity can only be measured in terms of the number of teachers, department heads, and group leaders luho actively use the countless thousands of films, filmstrips and other audio-visual aids such as recordings, opaque j^rojection, etc. with which this nation has now been so lavishly supplied. The contribution of producers and manufacturers has most apparently Ijcen far greater than our progress in marketing and in the national education and information of these prospective users in the school and community. Educational film producers tell us that, due to present methods of evaluation, preview and reporting to the field, almost two years can elapse before a good new film achieves any kind of national distribution. School buying practices being necessarily slow in any case, the hardship caused by such antiquated and indirect methods of publicity and marketing has made educational film production a risky and unprofitable business for any but the most established concerns. A Responsibility Wk Share Completing a three-year continuing survey of this problem during the past summer, Audio-Visual Publications staff members in Chicago noted the following facts: (1) Present audio-visual journals, one of them in existence for more than a quarter-century, were reaching only a comparative handful of the existing markets. For example, U. S. schools are estimated to own more than 35,000 IGimn sound projectors and well in excess of 100,000 S.'innn filmstri|j projectors. Vet only one of the five journals serving audiovisual education (See & Hear) has managed to reach more than .fJ.OOO school readers. (2) Today's audio-visual journalism attempts to be "all things to all jicople" and, more often, succeeds in reaching only a few thousands of enthusiastic and already well-con vinced audio-visual leaders and de])artment heads. The "horizontal" policy of attempting to serve the vast field of churches, industry and the community as well as the schools within a single publication of very limited total circulation is obviously of little value to either the producer or the manufacturer and is even less useful to the small groups of readers in each of these large fields. Our Program Also Reviewed (3) The existing See S: Hear editorial program, up to May, 1949, has been entirely directed to the schools. Editorial content was unswervingly devoted to the curriculum and related problems. But the broadness of the entire school market, the specialized interests of groups within tlie school field, has also served to limit our editorial usefulness as the content of each previous issue apparently straddles a wide range of elementary, secondary, and college subjects. Meanwhile, we had been learning important and useful lessons from other publication activities, notably the Film Guide Library which include the first series of specialized resource guides. In these we have managed to bring together the related interests of such vast market fields as the athletic and physical education de[jartments (Sports Film Guide) ; the school and community safety interests (Safety Film Guide) ; v ocational shop classes and apprentice training programs in industry (The Inde){ of Training Films) ; and the growing field of sound slidcfilm utilization (Sound Slidkfii.m Gi!Ide) . Here Are Main Ob jrcnvEs Measuring the full range of audiovisual markets in the schools and the conmuinity we note the following sales opportunities: There aie more than .")0.000 physical education directors and coaches in our schools who are not today being served by an audio-visual publication program. Having kindred interests are countless other thou SEE & HEAR FALL REVIEW