Here We Go Pittsburgh!!

Gradual progress was achieved today as I completed placing the reels in chronological order on the small shelve space provided. The official count of reels is 125 with a date span of 1936-1977. This span is about a decade earlier than I had initially thought, and both 1936 films relate to basketball but not Pitt. One of the 1936 basketball films relates to the University of Kentucky, my alma mater, which seems to be in good condition. If the film’s AD strip reveals little to no deterioration the film may be suggested for de-accessioning and offered to Kentucky’s archives. The other 1936 film, labeled “NYU, Kent, and Ohio St. Basketball,” was actually a “safety,” acetate, Agfa film, which is suffering from level two deterioration.
Of the 125 films, about a dozen are undated or unmarked. Along with the two non-Pitt basketball films from 1936 there were two films that required additional research to learn of their content. The first film was marked “Dr. H.C. Carlson,” who was Pitt’s basketball coach from 1922-1953. An interesting side note being that on February 28, 1940, Pitt played in the first ever televised basketball game under Carlson, a 57–37 victory over Fordham at Madison Square Garden that was televised by NBC. While I doubt this film relates to this game, as the only marking is the coach’s name, it is an interesting fact that relates to the material. The second can that required additional research was one marked “Kitchener vs. Sarnia Imperials.” It terms out that this is a game from the Ontario Rugby Football Union, ORFU, which existed from 1922-1953. The can lacks a date, but similar to the UK footage, if this film is of decent condition it may be send to a more appropriate repository.
I also noted cases of spoking as I housed some uncanned films. Now that I have some intellectual control over the order of the material, I plan on doing more thorough condition reports next week.