Over more than half a century, MCAD developed one of the outstanding small college art and design slide collections in the nation, with holdings that eventually reached 145,000 glass-mounted 35mm. slides. This collection documented not only traditional art media such as painting, drawing, sculpture and photography, but also unusual items ranging from Native American masks to microphotographs of plant, animal, and geological forms.
With the coming of the digital revolution, however, the analog collection’s days were numbered. Faculty and student use declined each successive year. MCAD stopped adding new slides in 2005 as the College began to ramp up digital image production, and in 2010 announced its intention to cease supporting the use of slides as instructional resources.
Much of the slide collection has now been moved to a secure storage area in the Library, where it will continue to be available to guide our ongoing production of digital teaching images. But thousands of slides in good condition, for which there is no further use, will be given away to good homes, or to students to use in creative projects. Watch for more information about “The Great Slide Give-away” with the start of fall semester!
Allan Kohl
Visual Resources Librarian
Will they be "scanned" into digital format or anything before being given new homes?
ReplyDeleteAll of the slides to be given away in the forthcoming "Great Slide Giveaway" fall into at least one (or more) of the following categories: -- MCAD has already acquired them as digital images; -- they are duplicates of slides we still retain; -- they depict works that are available to MCAD users through ARTstor, our subscription image database.
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