Locked away in Founders Memorial Library is an overlooked cache of film reels that NIU students may not know they can view.

Shelved in a climate-controlled room in the Microforms Department, these 16 mm prints include feature films, short films and old educational classroom films.

The Microforms Department was originally formed to provide university curriculums with educational media. It has been around for as long as any of the librarians can remember, after the library moved to its current location in the 1970s.

Despite only having loaned out about 10 to 12 reels to various university departments last year, Wally Grant, a librarian and section head of the Microforms Department, believes the collection is important.

“I think it’s a very valuable asset to the library and to the university,” Grant said. “We have things that are one-of-a-kind in the nation or even the world.”

With the assistance of someone from the Microforms Department, students can check out film reels to watch for their own education or enjoyment in the library’s two projection rooms.

Laura Larson, junior clinical laboratory sciences major, works in the Microforms Department and said students don’t seem very interested in the film reels.

“There hasn’t been much demand to watch the actual film reels, but it’s an interesting experience to watch them,” Larson said.

Students can experience the scratches and pops of old media in some of the collection’s classic films, which include “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The French Connection” and some of Charlie Chaplin’s early work.

“They have a fantastic movie selection,” said David Rauch, senior journalism major. “It’s a lot better than the Dollar Video or the Blockbuster Video in terms of really cool stuff and really obscure foreign films.”

These film reels, along with DVDs, VHS tapes, microfiche and microfilm make up the Microforms Department. Altogether, the library’s microforms collection totals approximately 3.5 million reels.

However, a majority of the film reels has not been taken out of their cans in 15 years, leaving them to deteriorate unless transferred to digital media.

“The 16 mm film could be transferred to a tape or DVD,” Grant said. “There’s an office on campus that does it, but it is an expensive process when there are thousands to do.”

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