Since 1980, the University of South Carolina has built a national reputation as one of the top film preservation archives in the nation. Its Moving Image Research Collection has recently become the recipient of a significant national gift – the archival films of the United States Marine Corps. Tom McNally, Dean of Libraries at the University, says the school took the collection with no funds to preserve it, but with the faith that revenue donors could be found, which they were.
Curator of Newsfilm Collections Greg Wilsbacher says the MIRC’s reputation has evolved, and that the World War II film has impressed most, out of all the film he’s seen thus far (though there’s much more to come). According to McNally, the university will digitize the entire collection and put it online (some of it can already be seen at mirc.sc.edu) for everyone to see and use, free of charge.
