Public Library Film

[Lincoln Thorn]

Greetings friends!

I'm currently working on year number 8 as a librarian in these parts of Ky, but I was wanting to know if anyone here had any personal experiences their local libraries renting films when you were growing up? I knew that my local library and the larger Lexington branch had a film collection until about 1990 or so, when they sold it off for educational tapes and equipment. I've even found a couple local school film prints from the 70s and 80s, but I'd love to hear your stories on how the library might have influenced your love of film!

Lincoln

[Paul Adsett]

Lincoln, the Orange County Public Library here in Florida used to loan out, at no cost, their collection of 16mm and Super 8mm films. They had quite a collection of S8 prints, mostly Blackhawk 400 footers, and Disney 200ft, some Columbia, and a few features. I used to get loan out prints on a weekly basis. Around 1998 or so they decided to have a big 2 day sale of all their prints, and I went down and purchased all the ones I wanted. At the end of the sale they still had a very large number of S8 prints left. I made an offer to the library for the whole lot and then I called Derek Simmonds at Derann in the UK and asked him if he was interested in buying the whole lot. I named a price that gave me a nice profit. Derek accepted my offer and I shipped about 8 large boxes of prints to Dudley UK. Derek subsequently listed them in his sales list and undoubtedly made his own profit. So it was a good deal for all concerned!

A couple of years later I was on a visit to Williamsport Pa and thought I would check out the Public Library there. Low and behold they had a few prints still on hand and I picked up a real gem - the documentary Bogart. Unfortunately thay only had the second reel of this 2 x 600ft film, but its a really great reel, the best of the two by far, so I was very glad to buy it from them.

[Steve Klare]

The Public Library System in Baltimore still lends out 16mm films!

Enoch Pratt Public Library

Our friend Geoff from CineSea lives there and tells me he has borrowed films.

[Lincoln Thorn]

That's so cool! I'm glad to hear there is still some lending going on today.

[Douglas Meltzer]

I never checked out a Super 8mm film from the Public Library, but I have come across a few ex-library prints.

[Steve Klare]

Here's an interesting one:

These videos are about the director of Audiovisual services at another library system in Maryland, only a few days away from retirement, talking about the 16mm Library he developed and wondering abut its future:

The House that Kent Built

The House that Kent Built part 2

To me it looks from browsing their online catalog like the library transferred a lot of the films to digital media:

Let's hope the Library put the 16mm Prints up for sale: many of 'em sound like ones that would be good for a battle on E-Bay!

[Steve Klare]

"CAUTION SUPER-8 FILM DO NOT USE ON STANDARD 8MM PROJECTOR"

Ouch!!!

That's the whole problem with lending out film prints: Projection of films is a little bit of an art and it takes some skill, care and experience to do it right. Putting it in just any hands is like lending out a car with a stick-shift: gears will be ground!

I saw this myself here a couple of years ago: I added 16mm and until manual threading became part of my very being, some leaders met senseless deaths!

My biggest complaint with used 16mm prints is how far into the film I start by the time I have the machine fully threaded. (-more senseless killing!) I splice on a lot of leader here.

VHS and disc-based media are a lot more fool-proof.

[Dave Bickford]

I never checked out a Super 8mm film from the Public Library, but I have come across a few ex-library prints.

Same here. I bought a batch of films a couple of years ago, and most were former library prints.