Candace Ming, University of Alaska, Summer 2010, IMLS
For my summer internship I worked at the Alaska Film Archive. The archive collects films and video with content particular to Alaska. Collections include dog sledding, gold mining, and native culture. The collection has two vaults, one for 16mm film and one for video. They have over 10,000 hours of material and much of their collection is accessed regularly through the library. Over the summer I processed two very different collections. The first was a small 16mm film collection from Fort Wainwright. It consisted of military training films involving soldiers skiing, hiking, mountain climbing, and boating. The second collection was from an Alaskan production company called Takotna Video. It consisted of around 300 3/4" tapes loosely organized. The content ranged from coverage of the Iditarod to balloon racing all taking place in Alaska. My internship was rewarding and fulfilling. I had great co-workers and I learned about film handling, cataloging, and the logistics of processing and housing collections.