Filmstripped
October 30th, 2006 by Editor BI recently learned that the library here at the University has a stockpile of a few hundred educational filmstrips from the 50s and 60s. They’re getting rid of them, selling them to some company that extracts the silver.
I guess that’s better than just throwing them away. I guess they don’t have much real value. Over at Etsy someone is selling packs of eight for $2.50.
But I had to grab a few as souvenirs. These things are interesting to me.
Titles: “Two Decades of Cold War,” “Black Treasures,” “Look at Your Future,” “The Population Explosion,” “The Next Twenty Years.”
More pix here.


October 30th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Ooooohhhh! Those things are rich in cultural history, good, bad, and downright hilarious. I hope, at least, that there is an archive of these somewhere, and that what are being destroyed are only copies…
October 30th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
AmAZing! I wish there were a way to “save” more of them.
October 31st, 2006 at 8:15 am
What a cool find. Did they have the audio cassettes that went with them? If they did, you could scan in the filmstrips and synch up the audio.. filmstrips on the net..
October 31st, 2006 at 9:26 am
That’s a shame! As Kelly says, those are rich in history and culture. Perhaps it’s not as dire, but it reminds me of how some photographic prints from the Civil War were used as greenhouse windows.
October 31st, 2006 at 11:53 am
It’s a pity that MST3K is off the air. You could send ‘em to Mike Nelson…
October 31st, 2006 at 4:29 pm
I used to love it when the teacher pulled out the old film strip projector.
I wonder if there is a filmstrip archive somewheere. Most of those things must be long gone by now.
October 31st, 2006 at 4:51 pm
If I could get my hands on a machine, I could digitize them for ya B! Those sure do hold some early school memories for me as well.
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:29 pm
[...] Bart Everson brought home some old educational film strips and writes bout them in Filmstripping. He took stills. I like the focus slide. [...]
November 4th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Oh, How I wish they didn’t sell these. They are very rare and contain much historical data - much of it now debunked - but they are treasures from the past. I used to produce and do the voice-over on many of them.
Glad you saved a few. Hold on to them.
btw: i am a transplanted stumpjumper and have been lurking on a few NOLA sites since Katrina. I am so very proud of you folks.
November 5th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
http://www.archive.org/details/avgeeks
AV Geeks film archive
it is a shame to see those go. I wonder how much money is made, selling them for silver extraction.
Bart grab a bunch! we could do an evening of educational filmstrip remixing.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
I am looking for a vintage filmstrip about two ladies that made pancakes so good that the people that ate them saw polka dots and heard music. They ended up getting a crowd of people that desired the pancakes. I can’t remember anything else about that filmstrip, but we loved it so much. If anyone knows what it is called or where I can find it, please let me know.
Thank you,
Kelly