Museum of Modern Art Film Stills Archive closes

n 12 January 2002, New York's Museum of Modern Art, as part of the preparation for a complete renovation of its Manhattan location, closed its Film Stills Archive. The Archive's over four million images were shipped to the Museum's Celeste Bartos Film Preservation Center in rural Hamlin, Pennsylvania, a storage facility which houses the Museum's archival film collection, where they are now stored in file cabinets and boxes in climate controlled hallways. The Museum plans to keep the collection at the Bartos Center for the duration of the renovation. Stills have been inaccessible since the Archive closed, and the Museum has not yet been determined if they will become available before its scheduled re-opening in 2005. Stephen Higgins, Collections Manager of the Museum's Department of Film and Media, said there is hope of digitising the collection for access purposes, but that such an initiative is 'a ways down the road, [since] digitisation requires a lot of planning and a lot of fundraising'. A comment made by museum director Glenn Lowry about 'whether or not it makes more sense to keep all the film-related material together'1 has led to speculation that the stills may remain in Hamlin permanently. In any case, Higgins says it is the Museum's intention 'to get access open again, and to get people using it. Otherwise, it's of no use to anyone. We recognise that.' The Archive was originally to be included in MoMA's temporary site in Queens, New York; why it was closed and relocated instead to Hamlin has been the subject of heated debate. The Museum's position is that the location change was necessitated by a lack of space in its Queens branch, and its web site indicates that the move has a benefit: 'We believe the transfer of the Film Stills Archive to the Bartos Center, while restricting public access in the short term, will ensure its long-term care and preservation during this time of transition at MoMA'. However, press accounts have suggested that the move was related to the vocal participation of the Archives' two long-time staff members Assistant Curator Mary Corliss and Cataloguer Terry Geesken in the Museum employees' union strike of 2000. The Village Voice reported that, 'Corliss had always planned for the Archive to stay open to the public during the museum's reconstruction. Together with architects from Cooper, Robertson & Partners, she helped supervise the final plans for a mezzaninelevel space in MoMA Queens to house the stills. But then on 28 April 2000, Corliss, along with 250 MoMA staffers, went on strike. And when she returned in the fall after a bitter 134-day walkout, plans for a Film Stills Archive in Queens no longer seemed to exist.'2 Both Corliss and Geesken were laid off on the day that the Archive closed. Whatever the reason, the shutting of the facility has become a hardship for the people who once used it. The Achive received over 1,000 visitors annually and fielded requests from researchers, writers, curators, programming venues, distribution companies, 'anyone', says Corliss, 'with a serious interest in film'. While broad ranging, the collection is particularly strong in its holdings of silent and i ternational titles, and it is researchers in these areas who have been most affected. Film scholar Merrill McCord, for example, is working on a comprehensive history of the Fox Film Corporation, from its founding in 1915 to its 1935 merger with Twentieth

Topic: Digital and Traditional Archives Management
Subfield: Conservation
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences