There are three ways to find out about the WCFTR (and WHS) collections in detail.
UW Madison Libraries Catalog
Manuscript and moving image materials can be searched in the UW-Madison Libraries catalog. It allows both basic and advanced searching by author, title, subject, and keyword. It will bring up a short descriptive entry for each collection, with related links to other collections. This catalog searches the entirety of library and archival holdings for the state of Wisconsin, so please limit your search to “Wisconsin Historical Society Archives” to view materials in the WCFTR collections. If you see the notation “Register Available Online,” this means that the detailed finding aid for this collection has been digitized and is available online. Click on that and you will be taken to the relevant finding aid page. Not all collections have online finding aids; for those that do not, researchers must consult printed finding aid files in the Archives Research Room at the Wisconsin Historical Society (or contact us).
Finding Aids
Finding Aids are detailed descriptions of WCFTR (and WHS) collections that not only give you far more information about each collection, but allow you to search by keyword through the collection, at the file level. This allows you to see if there are any files in the collection relevant to your subject, and to see how many there are and in what part of the collection. You cannot pull up the actual documents digitally, but must come to the WHS to consult the actual files.
Feature Film Database
Search American and international feature-length films in the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research collection by title, country, production company, director and year. A search in the Feature Film Database combined with a search in ArCat will return hits for all titles in the WCFTR collections.