From San Jose to Baltimore: Bringing the Academic Film Archive to Johns Hopkins

Sponsored by Hopkins at Home, Film and Media Studies (A&S), the Sheridan Libraries & University Museums, and the Friends of the Johns Hopkins University Libraries

The Academic Film Archive of North America (AFANA) is devoted to preserving and celebrating vintage, 16-mm educational films. The vast collection—some 7,600 films strong and still growing—spans topics from ancient Greece, comets, Shakespeare, and the Ice Age to canoe-building and silk-weaving. It was donated to the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries last fall by Geoff Alexander.  

Hopkins at Home presents a virtual panel discussion featuring Geoff Alexander, AFANA founder and CEO, Donald Juedes, librarian for Film and Media Studies at the Sheridan Libraries, and Liz Mengel, associate dean for collections and academic services at the Sheridan Libraries. Learn about Alexander’s nationwide hunt to find a new home for his archive, the collection’s journey from San Jose, California to Baltimore, and how the films are currently being processed and prepared for research use by Hopkins faculty and students.