Volunteer at the Library

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia Library’s has a wonderful group of volunteers helping us with some big projects:

• Journal indexing project
• Press Clippings project

Our volunteers work in our Library which is located at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia ’s headquarters in Acton, Canberra. The Library is open Monday-Friday 10am-3pm.

Our volunteers learn more about film, the work of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia , and make a great contribution to film and television research.

Contact
If you have any questions about the Library, the projects, or would like to discuss volunteering with us, please contact the Library Manager by phone at (02) 6248 2254 or by email at library@nfsa.gov.au

Requirements
We ask that our volunteers commit to at least six months of work with the Library. Weekly time commitments can vary, but we need a volunteer to be available for a minimum of three hours per week.

Skills
While we provide all necessary training, we do need our volunteers to have:

• excellent oral and written communication skills
• knowledge of Microsoft Office
• knowledge and familiarity with using the internet
• accurate, and organized

About the Journal indexing project
The NFSA Library contributes indexing to the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals. FIAF stands for the Federation Internationale des Archives du Film.

Founded in Paris in 1938, FIAF is a collaborative association of more than 150 of the world’s leading film archives, located in over 77 countries. The FIAF International Periodical Indexing Project indexes over 300 film and television journals, with titles contributed by various International libraries and film archives.

The NFSA Library’s contribution to the project increases access to the latest research and discussion about film and television to researchers around Australia and overseas.

The NFSA Library indexes
Metro (Australia) – publishes reviews of current Australian film and television productions, with retrospective articles about Australian film and television history and personalities.

Film Criticism (United States of America) – publishes essay length articles by international scholars, film historians, theorists, and critics on current and retrospective reviews of cinema.

The New Review of Film and Television (United States of America) – promotes current research in the humanities, publishing essays on film and television theory, and contemporary television and filmmaking practices.

Studies in Australasian Cinema – promotes critical discussion of cinema from the Australian, New Zealand and Pacific region.

Other Australian journal titles:
The Library would also like to continue indexing of past issues of Australian journals, filling gaps in the FIAF index, and increasing the accessibility of Australian film and television research; making this information available to libraries and other organizations worldwide.

So far, the NFSA Library has contributed indexing of 20 back issues of the Australian publication Cantrill’s Filmnotes. We would like to continue this work by adding indexing for a further 223 issues from six more Australian journal titles.

About the Press Clippings project
The NFSA Library has a large collection of press clippings relating to film, television, radio, sound recordings and related topics. The collection is a Research Collection open to the public.

We are in the process of cataloguing the clippings files to make them more accessible. So far, the NFSA Library has catalogued 600 files, but we have many more to go!

Our volunteers assist us with this project by tidying up the files, identifying contents, and adding new material.