Kirk Mudle, Fall 2021

Kirk Mudle, Queen’s Museum, Fall 2021

At Queen's Museum, I worked with a collection of films related to the 1939-40 and 1964-65 New York World's Fairs. The majority of the films were produced in and around the 1964-65 World’s Fair, and include home videos donated by attendees, documentary films, corporate sponsored films, or news coverage related to the World’s Fairs. I viewed, rehoused, and documented these 16mm and 8mm films, many of which had never been seen by the public. This involved attaching new leader, repairing damaged splices, and placing each onto inert polypropylene cores and vented polypropylene film canisters.

During the rehousing process, I confirmed or enhanced the metadata in the existing inventory while taking pictures and notes on the content of each film. I paid particular attention to important narrative landmarks, such as the particular World's Fair pavilions, attractions, and historical figures featured, and noted any information related to their production, provenance, and intellectual property concerns. In the final weeks of my internship, I helped prepare documentation for the museum's application for the Council on Library and Information Resources’ ninth Recordings at Risk grant program. Based on my research during the semester,  I drafted an inventory for the application that contained technical, condition, copyright, and content descriptions for several of the most unique and at-risk films in the collection.