The WCFTR blog highlights collection news, projects, and services with posts by staff, student assistants, and volunteers. We also cover WCFTR events and events with our campus partners.
Recent Posts
Wrangling Date Metadata in the Media History Digital Library
For over a decade the Media History Digital Library (MHDL) has supported film and media studies by providing online access to trade papers, fan magazines, and other primary source materials. Lantern, the search platform for the MHDL, provides full-text search for millions of pages within the collections. I have worked as one of the main MHDL developers for the past 4+ years. During that time, I have seen first-hand the various interconnected systems and tools—as well as continual “behind the scenes” work—that keeps things running smoothly. This work is not always visible or apparent to users, so what I’d like to do with this blog post is share what some of this work has involved.
July 31, 2024Writer in Action: The Alvin Boretz Collection
Samantha Janes The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is proud to announce the online launch of Writer in Action: The Alvin Boretz Collection. The Alvin Boretz collection documents the life and writings …
March 22, 2024Honoring David Bordwell, game-changing film historian and leader for the WCFTR
By Eric Hoyt At the WCFTR, we are grieving the loss of one of our leaders and dear friends. David Bordwell, emeritus professor of Film, passed away last week at his home in Madison, Wisconsin. …
March 3, 2024
Celebrating Valentine’s Day All Month Long with Wendy Clarke’s Love Tapes
Ashton Leach The snow outside is melting and hearts are growing warmer as Valentine’s Day quickly approaches. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research is overjoyed to join in the love-filled season by sharing …
February 10, 2024
Ink Stained Hollywood recognized by the Theatre Library Association
Ben Pettis Everyone here at the WCFTR is incredibly excited to learn that our very own Eric Hoyt has been recognized with an exciting award from the Theatre Library Association (TLA). His most recent book, Ink-Stained …
October 20, 2023WCFTR, now on laserdisc!
Matt St. John The audiovisual holdings at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research span numerous formats and sizes, from 16mm film prints to 2-inch videotapes, and we recently welcomed laserdiscs into the fold! …
September 18, 2023
File under Telectroscope: Archives of Media in the Making
The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research was honored to co-sponsor of the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference, held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. from April 27-30, 2023. One of the WCFTR’s co-sponsored sessions was a discussion with Dr. Doron Galili (a Research Fellow in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University) about his book Seeing by Electricity: The Emergence of Television, 1878–1939 (Duke University Press, 2020). The discussion was moderated by Dr. Michele Hilmes, emeritus professor in the Communication Arts Department and a former director of the WCFTR, and also featured Dr. Susan Murray (BA, UW-Madison) and Dr. Philip Sewell (PhD, UW-Madison). We invited Dr. Galili to contribute to the WCFTR blog and expand on some of the reflections he shared at the conference about archives and broadcasting history.
June 29, 2023
“In Defense of Writers” from the Alvin Boretz Collection
Samantha Janes The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) is excited to share a piece from the ongoing digitization project of the Alvin Boretz collection. The Alvin Boretz collection came to the WCFTR …
June 6, 2023
Broadcasting A/V Data at the Radio Preservation Task Force Conference
Ben Pettis This past April, hundreds of researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners convened in Washington, DC for the 2023 conference of the Radio Preservation Task Force (RPTF). The RPTF is a group that promotes the curation …
June 5, 2023
WCFTR Receives NHPRC Grant for “Expanding Film Culture’s Field of Vision” Project
Matt St. John The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (WCFTR) has received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) for a project titled “Expanding Film Culture’s Field of Vision: …
May 31, 2023- Older Posts