8mm Forum: Public Libraries

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Posted by Guy Taylor, Jr. (Member # 786) on January 02, 2015, 11:22 AM:

Are there any public libraries left that loan out 8mm or 16mm motion pictures?

Most of us are old enough to remember when films were a normal thing for city or county public libraries to make available.

I think some universities still maintain a film inventory.

Posted by Mathew James (Member # 4581) on January 02, 2015, 11:32 AM:

This is a good question. I can remember the Hamilton Public Library in Jackson Square having tons of Xmm movies when I was young..... now gone unfortunately, but understandably.

Posted by Clay Smith (Member # 4122) on January 02, 2015, 11:39 AM:

I was able to loan out 16mm films from the St. Louis Public Library until about 1992 when my projector broke down. I think they still lent them out for awhile after that. It would be great if some still do.

Posted by Paul Suchy (Member # 80) on January 02, 2015, 11:57 AM:

Our suburban library system loaned out 16mm until the mid 90's and then stopped. The last print I borrowed was a low fade Star Trek "Trouble With Tribbles" in great condition. Around the same time, I asked my local library what had happened to all the super 8 prints that I used to check out. The woman said, "Oh, those are in the basement. Do you want to buy them?" A few of the prints had never been checked out. Features and shorts were all 25 cents each. I ended up with some pretty beat up digests, but I scored a mint print of "Steamboat Bill, Jr." and 6 other features in decent shape all for a quarter each. That was one Super day.

Posted by David Coppola (Member # 4209) on January 02, 2015, 12:05 PM:

Same here in Rochester NY. Our Library(s) had 8mm and 16mm prints. I remember at a time they had Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back in 16mm flat features. They were in pretty good condition. They had many other features as well. Not sure whatever became of them.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on January 02, 2015, 12:49 PM:

I think that most of them sold off what collections they had some years ago (as we have all seen ex-library prints up on ebay left and right).

But there is the possibility that some might still have they're collections and I wouldn't be surprised if they'd be willing to sell the whole collections to some happy camper of a collector!

The only problem with ex-library prints is that, lets face it, you have no idea as to how many times those prints have been run. Most I have ran into have been spliced to hell as well as scratched to hell. The only time it is otherwise, is if the print was added sometimes close to the end of the super 8 check outs at the librays. For instance, I have ran into late issue Blackhawks from library collections that were literally pristine as, by then, (mid 80's or later) most people had moved over to VHS and had forgotten that super 8 existed, period!

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 02, 2015, 01:13 PM:

The Orange County Library System here in Florida had a slew of 8mm films for free loan up until 1992 when they had a 2 day sell off. I went down the first day and picked up a few favorites for an excellent price. There were quite a few people there at that time browsing around. The next day I went back down and there was almost zero activity, and there was a ton of films left. I asked the librarian what would happen to all those unsold films and he said they would be boxed up and put into the basement. I asked him if he would sell all the films to me for $2.00 per 400ft reel and $1.00 per 200ft reel. He was delighted so I ended up with about 1,000 titles. I then called Derek Simmonds at Derann and asked him if he would be interested in buying a huge ex-library collection at $4.00 per reel and $2.00 per reel respectively. After a quick consult with Gary he came back on the phone and said yes please. So I picked out a few more titles for myself and FED-EXed the rest to Derek in about 12 big boxes. So here was a deal where everyone, the Librarian, myself, and Derann ended up with a big smile on their face! [Smile]

My only regret today is that I did not keep all the films for myself! [Big Grin]

Posted by Alan Rik (Member # 73) on January 02, 2015, 01:41 PM:

I often wonder what happened to the Superman cartoons that my Chinon scratched up from the local library. And the Little Rascal Silent films I scratched up too.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on January 02, 2015, 01:53 PM:

I copy and paste the information I put on the 16 mm section about two libraries in Belgium (they may be other ones I don't know) : "There are two general Libraries : one which has some films not yet digitalized and if you ask for one of that title, it seems you get it on film and another Library which has 16 mm and 35 mm but this one is expensive (75 € for 24 hours AND you must have an insurance of 5.000 € per film !). I Wonder how many copies they hired this year..."

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on January 02, 2015, 02:00 PM:

Were all the Super 8 and 16mm available for free, or was there sometimes a charge?
You were all very lucky in the US as such things were completely unheard of in this country's public libraries.
Many film libraries offered free-loan films in the UK, both features and shorts, the only expense was the postage for their return.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on January 02, 2015, 06:34 PM:

Maurice, at the Orlando Public Library you could get up to 8 films for a week at no charge, all through the 1970's, 80's, and up to 1992. Late fee was $1.00 per day per title. Interesting things would sometimes happen to these films. I remember getting the 400ft digest of The Jolson Story on loan for a week, only to find out that some other film buff had neatly cut out a couple of Jolie's songs!

Posted by Paul Suchy (Member # 80) on January 02, 2015, 07:17 PM:

No charge for the 8mm at the library, but there was a two dollar fee for the 16mm because they had to be delivered from the suburban library system's main location. King Kong, Citizen Kane and Top Hat were all pulled because they busted someone for charging admission.

Posted by Joe Vannicola (Member # 4156) on January 05, 2015, 10:19 PM:

The Wilmington library used to loan out 16mm films until the late 1980's and then they to VHS. For years I tried to purchase certain films, but the guy in charge of the film department would only sell the whole collection for $2,000.

About three years ago,I went to the library to give it one more try only to find that the guy in charge was now retired. I thought this was my golden opportunity to buy the films I wanted. Well,to my surprise(and it was not a pleasant one)the whole kit and caboodle was sold to someone else a few days before for $200.

However,I did know for a fact that the color films were probably
red and a lot of the films were splicey and beat to hell. There was an excellent probability that there were only a handful of films in good condition. [Mad]

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