Thanhouser studio in New Rochelle, NY ca. 1910
Photo credit: Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc.
www.thanhouser.org
Resources
Founded in 2001, The Moving Image is a unique, hybrid journal that serves several professions and communities of thinkers, scholars and practitioners interested in archival issues and materials. Its objectives are, in many ways, aligned with the similarly varied objectives of its parent organization, AMIA. Though we have a number of ways of describing this mission, a catch-all the TMI team have grown fond of focuses on the journal’s ability to bridge these communities and foster meaningful communication between them.
The Moving Image has four primary sections: Features, Forum, our new Collections section, and Reviews. Our brand-new Collections section is a platform for archives (small, large, institutional, private) to share some of what they are doing with our readership. Somewhat shorter than our Features, these articles can take many shapes but are generally intended to draw attention to materials and/or processes the TMI and AMIA community should know about.
It’s called Collections…it’s about connections. TMI’s Collections section is a natural extension of what AMIA does best: connecting our membership (to each other, to materials, to ideas). Our hope is that these pieces will generate interest in your collections and this interest can lead to further opportunities.
Do you frequently find yourself excitedly talking about materials you are working with? Did you just process a new collection? Consider submitting a profile of the collection you are obsessing over to The Moving Image. Let’s get eyes on these materials!
We are interested in moving image histories, aesthetics, and technologies, especially as they impact or are impacted by archival practice. We are also interested in archival labor, best practices, and in-depth project narratives. We think of ourselves as a platform for this broad and diverse community and we pride ourselves on our work with seasoned academic writers and novices alike. Bolstered by an active editorial board with wide-ranging areas of expertise, the journal strives to maintain its position at the center of the broader archival conversation.
Open Call: Our aim is to produce a fall “open” issue and a spring “special” issue (guest-edited or otherwise thematically organized) each year. Exceptions will be made. We are always accepting manuscripts, queries, etc. We are also always eager to discuss special issue ideas.
The Moving Image has four primary sections: Features, our Forum section, our new Collections section, and Reviews.
Double-blind peer-reviewed Feature articles are generally between 4000 and 6000 words (though we have published many exceptions to this). The most “formal” of our sections, articles here tend to be research-focused, academic contributions. Features are often but not always focused on the study of archival materials, though we also frequently run more “experimental” features.
Forum articles are typically shorter (by how much varies quite a bit), are often less formal, and are less reliant on academic research. These pieces frequently take the shape of project narratives or interviews, but we are wide open to other ideas. We also welcome cautionary tales about problems encountered during projects and how to solve/avoid those problems or pieces that discuss limitations that archives have to circumvent or tackle head-on; we learn from considering our failures as much as our successes, after all. More technical pieces? Sure! Articles focused on archival labor? By all means. Forum pieces will be assigned a reader from our editorial board, but the process is often more casual.
Our Collections section is a platform for archives (small, large, institutional, private) and researchers to share some of what they are doing with our readership. Focused on specific collections, we might think of these as “spotlight” pieces or “profiles.” Also somewhat shorter, these articles can take many shapes but are generally intended to draw attention to specific materials the TMI and AMIA community should know about.
Reviews are an integral part of the journal and keep our community apprised of what else might be of interest in our various fields (we review media as well as books). Reviews are an outstanding entry-level way to get your feet wet writing for The Moving Image – we encourage graduate students to contribute reviews – but we are also proud of the fact that many leaders in our various professions volunteer to review for us, recognizing the importance of these contributions to our mission. Our Reviews editor is always looking for material and volunteers and loves working with new and veteran writers. Many of our reviewers have enjoyed the experience so much that they have come back to write Features or Forum articles.
Whether you are interested in writing a Feature, a Forum piece, a Collection profile, or a review, you will find our editorial representatives communicative, encouraging, and helpful.
We are delighted to work with and mentor new authors and are proud of the work we’ve done recently to open up the review process (while maintaining a high degree of rigor) on a case-by-case basis. Some first-time authors have been assigned “mentors” from the Editorial Board and/or Publications Committee who have help them through the publication process and we’ve worked closely with student groups and AMIA Fellowship cohorts to place excellent student writing (in The Moving Image or, sometimes, elsewhere). The Moving Image is committed to the idea of our membership sharing its ideas through publication and we are obliged to guide authors to other suitable publications when an otherwise excellent piece seems less tailored to the needs of our membership.
Though we frequently run calls for special issues, TMI is always accepting submissions (of manuscripts, queries, or proposals).
Kinds of content you will find in TMI:
Inquiries and submissions should be directed electronically to editor@themovingimage.org. All manuscripts should be submitted as a Microsoft Word e-mail attachment, double-spaced throughout, using 12-point type with 1-inch margins, using the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition.
Review copies of DVDs or books should be sent to the AMIA Office at 1313 Vine Street, Los Angeles, CA 90028. You may also contact our reviews editor directly (with reviews or queries): Brian Real: brian.real@uky.edu.
Please allow a minimum of 4 months for editorial consideration.
Subscription to The Moving Image is a benefit of AMIA membership. Non AMIA members who wish to subscribe should contact the journal publishers, University of Minnesota Press. Past issues of The Moving Image are available to members through an agreement with Minnesota Press and JSTOR.
Devin Orgeron, North Carolina State University (Emeritus)
Liza Palmer
Brian Real, University of Kentucky
Brian Real, University of Kentucky
Ilse Assmann | Independent Consultant for Radio and Television Archives
Snowden Becker | Stanford University Libraries
Tre Berney | Cornell University
Ed Carter | Academy Film Archive
Paolo Cherchi Usai | Cineteca del Friuli
Grover Crisp | Sony Pictures
Nico de Klerk | Utrecht University/Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital History
Guy Edmonds | University of Plymouth
Meghan Fitzgerald | National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Peter Flynn Emerson University
Giovanna Fossati Eye Filmmuseum/University of Amsterdam
Terri Francis | University of Miami
Michael Gillespie | City University of New York
Anne Gourdet-Marès | Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé
Karen Gracy | Kent State University
Tom Gunning | University of Chicago
Dorinda Hartmann | Library of Congress
Heather Heckman | University of South Carolina
Jan-Christopher Horak | University of California, Los Angeles
Eric Hoyt | University of Wisconsin, Madison
Luna Hupperetz | University of Amsterdam/Vrije Universiteit
Jennifer Jenkins | University of Arizona
Jimi Jones | University of Illinois
Peter Kaufman | MIT Open Learning
Andrea Leigh | Library of Congress
Bert Lyons | AVP
Mike Mashon | Library of Congress
Jan Müller | Regional Public Broadcasting Foundation (RPO)
Charles Musser | Yale University
Joshua Ng | Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga
Kassandra O’Connell | Irish Film Institute
Miriam Posner | University of California, Los Angeles
Rick Prelinger | University of California, Santa Cruz
Meredith Reese | LA Phil
Lauren Sorensen | Stanford University Libraries
Katherine Spring | Wilfrid Laurier University
Shelley Stamp | University of California, Santa Cruz
Rachael Stoeltje | Indiana University
Dan Streible | New York University
Charles Tepperman | University of Calgary
Kara Van Malssen | AVP
Erwin Verbruggen | Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision
Haidee Wasson | Concordia University
Mark Williams | Dartmouth University
Tami Williams | University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Joshua Yumibe | Michigan State University