established to advance the field of moving image archiving by fostering cooperation among individuals and organizations concerned with the acquisition, description, preservation, exhibition and use of moving image materials.
AMIA's members range from those who work solely with moving images to organizations where moving images are only a small part of their collection to individuals who want to protect their personal collection - home movies or small gauge or video - to film buffs concerned with losing our visual heritage.
Individuals responsible for preserving, restoring, and making accessible moving image heritage, including, film, television, video, and digital formats. As a profession, moving image archivists also advocate for the acknowledgement of moving images as important educational, historical and cultural resources.
"In the early part of the twentieth century, most people, even those in the film industry, considered movies to be only a cheap and disposable entertainment. Now we realize that a moving image is many things: a form of entertainment, an art form, an historical record, a cultural artifact, a commodity, and a force for social change.
More than a reflection of society and culture, moving images are primary documents that can serve a wide range of research purposes. The director Sydney Pollack has said that cinema is "The most vivid and valuable record of who we are, and what we thought, and what we believed. And it continues to be that." As our culture is increasingly shaped by visual images in the digital age, historians may soon rely on moving images as much as on the printed word to understand 21st century culture. In a sense, by relying more and more on moving images to understand the times in which we live, society is increasingly reverting back to its roots grounded in oral tradition.
Whether it's classic Hollywood feature films, 20th century newsreels, documentaries, classic television or home movies of Billy's fifth birthday, it is important to preserve our cultural heritage." - Moving Image Collections
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