As part of LIS 775, I learned about the Frank Llloyd Wright archival materials in Oak Park. For the final class assignment I created a posted board presentation that served as an introduction to the archives for my classmates. It included photos of the home and studio, photos of the archive I found online, contextual information and quotes, an image of Frank Lloyd Wright himself, and images of archival documents available online and in person at the Oak Park Public Library. I also added a 3D card of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio to create a stronger graphical element.
Though it is now known primarily as a child’s toy, View-Master was launched at the 1939 New York World’s Fair as a way to see the world from home in full-color 3-D images. It was marketed as a more exciting souvenir than a traditional postcard and reels were often sold at tourist destinations across the globe. View-Master reels featured beautiful photography of famous places and people through the 1960s.
Medical schools and the U.S. military used View-Master viewers and reels as educational tools, providing educational 3-D images to students of everything from internal organs to fighter planes.
In the 1960s, View-Master underwent a change of ownership and became increasingly targeted at children. The reels of that era de-emphasized education and scenic themes and moved aggressively toward entertainment titles focusing on cartoons and popular television programs.
Today, View-Master is owned by Fisher-Price and is considered a young child’s toy but the collector market thrives online.
Though the look of the viewers themselves has changed over time the reels have remained consistent. Any View-Master brand viewer will show any View-Master brand reel from any decade. Most vintage items are relatively inexpensive, but the price goes up exponentially for rare items.
Looking to buy/sell/trade/give away View-Master stuff to a good home? Let me know.
This website provides not only detailed information on every View-Master branded viewer in existence but a long list of knock-off brands with detailed photos and specifications. The site also features images of rare variants in viewers, such as unusual materials or colors used in production. Most importantly for collectors, it offers detailed specifications on the internal projection and overall quality of each View-Master viewer.
While it promotes itself as an animated, searchable list of individual reels, the best thing about this website is the 360-degree videos of every View-Master brand viewer produced since 1939. This is the most comprehensive visual representation online, featuring 20 distinct viewers and their various attachments. From the earliest “clamshell” style viewer to the brightly colored molded plastic viewers used today, this site has them all. There is also an area to view 360-degree videos of each of the four View-Master projectors available on the collectors market.
The Ultimate Reel List was an invaluable resource. It listed every known reel by logical numeric or alphabetical grouping as well as every known variant in images. I adapted the site into this handy spreadsheet.
Adapted from the View-Master Ultimate Reel List. From their site: As there was no official list of titles, this View-Master Database is an attempt to build a complete list of every individual reel, set, and their variants known to have been issued. It is hoped that the site will be of value to collectors and can continue to be expanded in the future.
Fisher-Price/Mattel currently owns View-Master and the official site is the place to discover new releases, most of which are for the virtual reality viewers. New releases are limited to children’s titles and education; travel reels have been slowly phased out over the years, finally ending production entirely in March 2009 (though there has been talk off and on over the years, I haven’t seen anything noteworthy in awhile). In early 2013 it was announced that Basic Fun had licensed the View-Master name from Fisher-Price and is producing new products but they are cheap and basically a nostalgic thing for parents and grandparents to buy little kids.
The View-Master Resource provides information on creating personal view-master reels. However, it also helpfully provides scans of envelopes and packaging so if a collector acquires a set of reels without the original envelope it came in, they can print a reproduction from a .pdf file and have a copy of the original packaging. Not as comprehensive as a collector might like but it’s a great a resource if a collector has reels that are in great shape but are missing the packaging.
One of the few print resources for View-Master history and values, this exhaustive guide provides a history and context—as well as a price guide that lists most known reels and approximate values at the time of publication. However, it does not list reel variants. Higher values items are generally rare so this book provides a quick reference for what reels are rare and thus worth the added expense, even if the exact market price is outdated. It also provides a history of the precursor to View-Master, the stereoscope and detailed information on the collectability of stereoscopic photo sets.
This is a limited edition book written by the foremost View-Master historians and collectors. This book offers both a behind-the-scenes look at the history of the company from interviews conducted with former employees and detailed information about collecting View-Master products.
This is a members-only group populated with some of the most knowledgeable View-Master collectors in the world. Anyone may join. New members are welcome to search the archive for information that dates back more than 10 years and to ask questions of members to benefit from the group’s collective wisdom. From collectors selling off their massive collections to questions about the right light bulb to get for a vintage lighted View-Master, the ViewMaster and 3DÂ Stereo Group knows everything a collector wants to know.
The NSA is a group dedicated to all things 3-D, with an emphasis on photography. The site includes a long list of links for View-Master enthusiasts. The organization’s annual gathering includes a day of selling and swapping 3-D items with some View-Master collectors in attendance. The annual event is a great chance to scoop up or swap items from other members.
It is one of the only stores online to specialize in View-Master viewers and reels, as well as 3-D paraphernalia in general. They offer new reels and old, as well as viewers, generally in excellent condition. They also offer hard to find, limited-run View-Master sets that are independently produced. Topics tend to focus on design and architecture and include reels, a viewer and a book on a specific architect or designer, such as Frank Lloyd Wright.
It is by far the most popular place for collectors to add to their collections. Ebay generally has dozens of pages of search results offering everything from single reels to large lots, from the common to the completely obscure–even personal reels created by amateur stereo photographers during the product’s heyday. Generally considered the only place to find educational reels produced for the military or medical schools, as well as other older and hard-to-find reels.
Online, Craigslist and Facebook marketplace are also good resources. In person, check flea markets and second-hand stores.
If you have red/blue 3D glasses this link is an archive to my 3D photos, some of which have made it onto my personal View-Master reels. If you want to create your own View-Master-style reels, check out Image3D.com.
What’s it Worth?
View-Master items, by and large, are inexpensive. Of course, if the item is rare, value goes up exponentially. The best way to find out what your item is worth is to search for it on eBay and check the completed and sold listings in the advanced search functions. Don’t assume anything. The “cool” old bakelite viewers are a dime a dozen because they were produced for decades. But if you have the viewer with the focusing feature (the Model D), you might get a nice return on it.
This pathfinder provides information for those interested in learning more about View-Master products and collecting. It should be of interest to new collectors interested in finding more information on this still relatively small community of enthusiasts.Â
For more information, please see my notes on my portion of the presentation:
This is a huge topic. But, what we want you to walk with is the idea that effective marketing is imperative to the future of libraries. And there are many reasons to learn to market your library—and librarians learning to be less resistant to the ideas.
One of the challenges faced in marketing is that research has shown that librarians are introverted and lack confidence. This sets expectations rather low. However, recent research has evolved to note that librarians are also social, investigative and enterprising. Yay!
Other early studies showed that librarians are resistant to undertaking marketing efforts but newer research shows that while there is resistance to change, administrators and other library employees were open to marketing if they had been exposed to the concepts via a class or seminar before.
So what does this mean to you, future librarians?
First of all you should try to take a class on marketing when it’s offered here and familiarize yourself with basic concepts. The most important concept in marketing today is branding. It’s the basis of most marketing plans and it’s another huge topic, worth of its own presentation.
Creating a public face for your organization requires cohesion and consistency. There are some resources in the handout to get you started.
What we’ll focus on are real world marketing efforts in Academic Libraries.
I came across a few unusual marketing efforts that I wanted to share to spark some creative thinking when it comes to marketing your library’s services.
The four examples I’ll be talking about are unusual ways to reach out to everyone within the academic community.
Montana State University’s COCKTAIL PARTY:
Traditional outreach to faculty includes flyers and brown bag luncheons. Montana State University upped the ante by throwing a cocktail reception directed at new faculty and department liaisons to the library.
The goal was to building relationships and create good will—and make the library a more welcoming space.
It was held in the library’s atrium and several solid decisions were made.
The librarians served the beverages themselves on a rotating, flexible schedule meant to encourage chitchat and make the event feel less formal.
They had music and centerpieces to make it festive but also provided three key areas for learning: they provided a table at the entrance to track the attendees and make them feel welcome, they had a demonstration area set up with short, pertinent demons  related to library services, and they had a table at the exit with flyers and more information on library services for guests to take.
MURDER IN THE LIBRARY at Christopher Newport University
The librarians held a murder mystery party for incoming freshman at Christopher Newport University’s library.
It’s purpose was to raise awareness of typical library needs of freshman, particularly: where the circulation and reserves and reference desks are, how to find a call # and locate a book, how to find a journal or periodical—and my personal favorite—where the copy machines were located!
Students had to solve the murder mystery with the help of the librarians and the services available at the library. The librarians had a lot of fun creating props and creating fun ways for students to find the five core pieces of information the librarians wanted to show them. While no surveys have been done to ensure that the students learned what they set out to learn, the murder mystery parties were popular.
MONSTROUS MARKETING
Trinity University’s Coates Library was one of just 82 libraries to get the ALA’s traveling exhibit, “Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Natureâ€.
This was an unusual opportunity to work with other departments and create an event to raise the profile of the library on campus.
In this case, a direct tie-in to the curriculum existed and so the library, working with the school’s PR dept developed and promoted a program that included a costume party reception, several lectures, a film festival, a panel on cloning, a student art exhibit and a blood drive, among other efforts.
This was a great opportunity for the library to reach out to the university community and the local business community, form partnerships, raise awareness and get freebies! The efforts cemented bonds that continued after the Frankenfest was over.
Collaborate with Students at Ames Library
Since this was assigned, I don’t want to go into too much detail. Suffice to say, getting student input and creating an educational opportunity for students is a win/win all around. And, in short, the collaboration worked for both the library and the students. And that’s the whole point of working with students on marketing projects for the academic library.
Located in the giant tourist trap that is the Black Hills of South Dakota, Presidents Park is on my list of heartbreaks. I only got to stand outside the gates and see this epic bust of Lincoln. Inside? A giant bust of every president in the midst of a pastoral park. I gots to get back there.
Crazy Horse Monument is almost inconceivably big. This is a rendering of what the final sculpture is supposed to look like.
Here is the monument from a distance–you have to pay extra to get up close but we opted not to (I don’t even remember why–I think we were in a hurry). At any rate, to give you some idea how big this thing is there is a tiny tractor at the base of the sculpture, as you can see below.
I always wanted to visit Mount Rushmore. And I always figured I’d be disappointed or underwhelmed but when I finally saw it–glimpsing it the evening I arrived at Keystone–I thought it was awesome. I got weirdly excited and felt kind of emotional.
It’s a pretty spectacular sight and it’s an incredible tribute to some of the great leaders of the past. It’s beautifully executed and majestic. I would go back–also because I never made it to the Reptile Park, which was a bummer!
