delosharriman: On a white background, a fist grasping an atomic nucleus, with rays behind ; around, "Atomic Power to the People!" (man-and-atom)
[personal profile] delosharriman posting in [community profile] man_and_atom

I have been spending a considerable amount of time and money acquiring nuclear–energy–related ephemera, scanning them, and making them available on–line.

This has multiple motivations. Firstly, there is the fact that much of this material is still valuable for public education and outreach. If it catches someone’s interest, they might learn something! Second is the historic preservation aspect — this is the kind of material which tends to disappear without a trace. Thirdly, I want to show that the nuclear-energy endeavour is fundamentally a human endeavour. It’s very easy for opponents to reduce the whole thing to a faceless technocratic–scientific monolith, which is easy to oppose. The pride of the scientists and engineers and technicians in their creations and their work often shows through in this kind of material.

As an extension of this work, I have also acquired a number of instructional or public–information films and videos. A friend has been kind enough to handle transferring the VHS cassettes to digital format. Films, however, I have had to pay for transferring, and the best rate I can get is something like $10—$15 a minute! (For this reason, contributions in aid are always greatly appreciated.) Therefore the work goes slowly.

Oddly enough, about 2021–07–06, one of these videos got about 250 views in a short time, but nobody who watched it went on to watch any of the others. I admit to puzzlement!

Films transferred so far

Films yet to be transferred

  • Atomic Energy : Inside the Atom, Britannica film not in the group on the Internet Archive (16 mm sound, monochrome)
  • Everyday Radiation, American school film, 1970s (16 mm sound)
  • How Much is Enough?, American school film about radiation measurements, 1970s (16 mm sound)
  • A reel of promo films for upcoming issues of Reader’s Digest from the early 1960s (what audience were these meant for?), including one on nuclear power (16 mm sound, faded colour)
  • An Italian news program from about 1963 referring to the opening of their first atomic power stations (16 mm sound)

VHS cassettes transferred

Extracted from DVD

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