About Film and Media Round Table

The American Library Association Video Round Table was founded in 1988 as the ALA Video Interest Group to provide “a unified voice for video advocacy in the areas of legislation, professional guidelines for collections today, such as those related to streaming and digital media, and other issues” (ALA Handbook of Organization, 1989/1990, p. 169) for ALA members with an interest in and/or responsibility for video collections. VRT became an official ALA round table two years later in 1990. It eclipsed 500 members for the first time in 2011. In 2018, members voted to rename the round table to the Film and Media Round Table (FMRT).

In addition to constantly striving to make ALA’s members and leadership aware of the importance of media and the issues facing modern media librarians and collections, FMRT’s notable accomplishments include developing guidelines for the interlibrary loan of audiovisual materials to facilitate their broader use, sponsoring the Videolib and Videonews listservs to provide a forum for discussing issues relevant to media librarianship, and establishing the Notable Videos for Adults list as a means of providing guidance to public and academic librarians involved in building dynamic and balanced video collections for adult library patrons.

Interested in joining FMRT?