Multi‐Media Catalog Sources

Abstract

Randy Pitman, an eloquent critic of librarians' print bias, has publicly noted a fact that should be obvious: referring to audiovisual materials in terms of what they are not (e.g., “non‐book materials”) automatically affords them second‐class status. Another media activist, Don Roberts, asserts that many selectors of multimedia library materials consider them to be “frivolous, secondary, or just plain negligible in content by comparison with printed materials.” In an article published twelve years ago which offered practical suggestions for overcoming “ingrained and inherent ‘printism,’” he listed alternative media producers and distributors, noted review sources outside the standard library literature, and provided other ideas for countering “the mistaken belief that you are required to leave your high‐fidelity, sensory‐aware self at home, or in your car, or at the concert hall, when you go to work at the library.” Today, he still finds “people who continue to specialize in formats, sentimentalize them, and try to perpetuate this or that medium as the pinnacle of consciousness…sometimes denying others access to formats which might be more appropriate to them in the process.” We are all multimedia beings, Roberts says: There is no way that books alone will enable us to “transform, inspire, and enliven.” Compiled with those thoughts in mind, the following annotated list of media producers and distributors which specialize in social issues—ethnicity, labor, peace, environment, and human rights, to name a few—primarily emphasizes independent and less well‐known media productions. Also worth noting are review sources like Angle—a publication covering work by women filmmakers (P.O. Box 11916, Milwaukee, Wl 53211, 414–963–8951; $20 individual, $30 institutional), Black Film Review (P.O. Box 18665, Washington, DC 20036; $12 individual, $24 institutional), and the lesbian/gay‐oriented Out in Video (Persona Press, Box 14022, San Francisco, CA 94114; $10).

Citation

Dodge, C. (1994), "Multi‐Media Catalog Sources", Collection Building, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 45-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb023387