RMIT University Saves
Australian Film Institute Library
The library of the Australian Film Institute, scheduled to close this month after the Australian Film Commission stopped funding it, has been rescued by Melbourne’s RMIT University. Beginning next year the library will be housed in four rooms at RMIT’s School of Applied Communication, AFI chairman Denny Lawrence said in the December 26 Melbourne Age.
Lauren Murray, the head of the School of Applied Communication, said RMIT was “honored to be appointed custodian of a national treasure such as the AFI library.” She told the Age the library will be open to the public at no charge beginning in February, adding that she wants to expand its fee-based commercial research arm.
An appeal to AFI members failed to raise the minimum $80,000 a year needed to maintain the library’s collection of 6,000 books, 750 journal titles, 300 unpublished scripts, and over 600,000 news clippings. Babe director George Miller has described the collection as unique, noting that its closure would have contributed to “the gradual erosion of the Australian film industry,” the Age reported.
Posted December 30, 2002.
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