Audiovisual Committee | The American Library Association Archives

The Audiovisual Committee (AC) was formed in January, 1924 (1). Its primary focus was on educational films and the relationship between films and library services, since librarians were becoming acquainted with the content, organization, and circulation of several forms of INT media, chiefly of films (2).

By 1965, the Audiovisual Committee broadened its interests to include a wider variety of media, and of library service, and assigned program planning, special projects, and continuing activities to subcommittees (3). In fact, audiovisual actvities had become dispersed among ALA units, entirely independent of the activities of the Audiovisual Committee (4).

Through the next ten years, the Audiovisual Committee attempted to define its role and mission within ALA; audiovisual activitiy among the divisions of the Association continued to function independently of the Audiovisual Committee (5). By 1974, nearly fifty separate audiovisual subcommittees within ALA divisions were identified (6).

In 1975, the Audiovisual Committee voted to discontinue its activities, because, the dispersion and diffusion of audiovisual activities across the Association, its major work had been accomplished (7).

By 1992, the Video Round Table had formed, working toward an acknowledgement of the critical role played by video within libraries and scholarly learnings. Its continuing emphasis is on film, working to identify less mainstream, commercial works, and expose a larger public to the less recognized works of independent film makers and documentarians, in additions to foreign films.

Sub-Groups:

1-Chairperson

2-Video Round Table

3-Publications

1. E. Clement, Audiovisual Concerns and Activities in the American Library Association, 1924-1975 (Dissertation, Indiana University, 1975), p. 12.

2. Ibid., p. 6.

3. Ibid., p. 89.

4. Ibid., p. 120.

5. Ibid., p. 129.

6. Ibid., p. 132.

7. Ibid., p. 146.