New Online Collection: NYU Fales Library Releases Flaherty Seminar Recordings, Unveiling Fifty Years of Cinematic History; More than 700 Audio Recordings Available Online For the First Time)

From New York University:

New York University’s Division of Libraries today announced the public release of more than 700 audio recordings from the Flaherty Seminar, the longest continuously running film event in North America
New York University’s Division of Libraries today announced the public release of more than 700 audio recordings from the Flaherty Seminar, the longest continuously running film event in North America, named in honor of seminal filmmaker and ‘father of documentary film’ Robert Flaherty.
The annual event’s fifty-year history is captured through recordings of various activities and discussions, joining collections in the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Archives and the University Archives chronicling the evolution of the moving image in the 20^th century.
The Flaherty Seminar recordings are held within the special collections of NYU’s Fales Library.
[Our emphasis] This release marks the first time a major audio collection will be accessible to the public online through a Fales Library finding aid.
The digitization of the Seminar recordings—which include reel-to-reel tapes and audio cassettes—has been underway since 2012, with recordings previously made available on CD, and only to researchers on site in Fales Library.
Founded in 1955, the Flaherty Seminar began before the era of film schools and has since been established as a one-of-a-kind institution that seeks to encourage filmmakers and other artists to explore the potential of the moving image through new cinematic techniques and approaches. The recordings provide scholars and students with unabridged access to candid discourse that championed unique and diverse voices and helped to shape the film industry.
The recordings captured in-depth discussions with the cinematic firebrands of the time, including Satyajit Ray, Agnès Varda, Mira Nair, John Cassavetes, and Yasujiro Ozu. These were boundary-breaking filmmakers who shed light into the corners of humanity, revealing and documenting global communities and culture.
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The release of the Flaherty Seminar recordings is a coordinated effort by NYU Special Collections, which include Fales Library, Archival Collections Management, Barbara Goldsmith Preservation and Conservation Department, and Digital Libraries Technical Services.

Resources

• Direct to Finding Aid, Listen to Digitized Audio Series I of the The Flaherty Film Seminar Finding Aid

• Direct to Flaherty Seminar Web Site

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