NRS-17460 | Index cards to films [Department of Education]

This series consists of index cards to the Department of Education’s film and video library and would appear to be the main indexing series. The index cards cover 16mm films, VHS video cassettes and UMATIC video cassettes. Each card provides the film or video’s title and the Library accession number. Many cards include a short description of the film or video, what audience the film or video is recommended for, the creating agency, and the date. Some index cards also have the running time, whether the film or video is colour or black and white, and the date of the film or video. Some cards have a blue “Appraisal of Condition” or “Review of Film Condition” card attached giving an overall rating of the film or video’s condition. These cards also give brief details of any problems with the film or video’s condition, such as fading colour or poor sound. Some index cards also have a copy of the purchase index card attached. These purchase cards contain information about films available for purchase by the Education Department.Until 1987, the Department of Education’s Film and Video Library collection was managed by a manual card system and the index cards being described here were part of that system. In late 1987, the Film and Video Library implemented a computer based management system to more efficiently manage the collection. As a result, the index cards in this series usually contain one or more identification numbers. These numbers may include an old Accession number that was allocated when the film was originally acquired and a new Accession number that was allocated when the management of the collection was computerised in 1987 (video accession numbers are prefixed with the letter “V”), a Call or Dewey number, a Rack number (for storage purposes), and a barcode number. If there are multiple film copies, then the barcode and Rack numbers for each copy may also be given. The 16mm film containers usually have the barcode and two other identification numbers on the outside cover.From 1987, video was superseding the 16mm films and when the library was closed in 1992, the video collection (active stock) was transferred to the regions and the 16mm film collection (inactive stock) was no longer used and was transferred to the Archives Authority.This index card series has a main alphabetical arrangement and two smaller alphabetical arrangements. It is not known why the two smaller arrangements were kept separate to the main arrangement.Not all of the films described on the index cards were retained.