LC Blog on the Sound of Silents

[craig2010]

http://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2014/ ... f-silents/

[telical]

http://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2014/ ... f-silents/

From the above:

"Among our many grand ambitions is to make more silent films from our collections available online. For some time now we’ve been prioritizing the digitization of silent titles for just this purpose. It would be a relatively straightforward matter to put them online in what would essentially be their “native” form, that is, with no speed correction (most silent films were neither shot nor projected at 24 frames-per-second, which is “sound” speed) and with no score. For instance, the roughly 500 silent titles available on the Library’s American Memory site are speed corrected, but very few of them have scores. Now that’s fine for access–better a truly “silent” silent than nothing at all–but we would like to offer a better presentation whenever we can. So, we have developed a process by which we present online many silent films with scores composed specifically for them."


It says the 500 films are listed at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/List ... lr=blognsh" target="_blank

but I only see 15 listed when it comes up, and not see any online films there.

[drednm]

and it looks like mostly newsreels

[Frederica]

http://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2014/ ... f-silents/

It says the 500 films are listed at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/List ... lr=blognsh" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

but I only see 15 listed when it comes up, and not see any online films there.

Those are the collections, if you click on the title of the collection, there is a search function for the films within that collection.

[telical]

http://blogs.loc.gov/now-see-hear/2014/ ... f-silents/

It says the 500 films are listed at:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/List ... lr=blognsh" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

but I only see 15 listed when it comes up, and not see any online films there.

Those are the collections, if you click on the title of the collection, there is a search function for the films within that collection.

I do better with "Browse" when I'm not sure what's in the database.
Not on the site at the moment, would the search terms be readily available?
Like "comedy" or "New York"? Maybe the search terms are listed on the site,
but then they could put a hyperlink to the results on the term listed.

Not being critical, grateful for the L.O.C.

[Daniel Eagan]

One problem is that this link -- http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/browse/List ... lr=blognsh" target="_blank -- leads to a page of collections. But the links on that page are largely outdated. The "Edison Companies - Film and Sound Recordings" link will take you to an old page on American Memory that is no longer being maintained.

But each of these outdated pages contains a link to the new web collections. For example, http://www.loc.gov/collection/edison-co ... ecordings/" target="_blank lists 423 films and recordings you can browse or filter for additional searches. Similarly, the old link to Westinghouse Works -- http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/papr/west/westhome.html" target="_blank -- has a link to the new website -- http://www.loc.gov/collection/films-of- ... orks-1904/" target="_blank -- that lists the 21 Westinghouse Works films available online.

This is really an incredible resource, and with a little thought is pretty easy to navigate.