“Science in Motion”: Librarians to Host Film Screening and Photo Preservation Events

Three UT librarians will share their specialized knowledge of film and photography at programs co-sponsored with the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture.

McClung Museum is currently hosting an exhibit titled Science in MotionThe Photographic Studies of Eadweard Muybridge, Berenice Abbott, and Harold Edgerton, works from the Bank of America Collection. The exhibition highlights three photographers who used groundbreaking techniques and pushed the limits of the medium artistically, allowing us to see what was previously unseen.

To expand our understanding of how photography has been used to help us observe “science in motion,” our librarians will host film screenings, and family day activities, which are free and open to the public. We’re also collaborating with the museum on a photo preservation event to help you care for your own photographic treasures.


“Film Screening: Silents in Motion”
Thursday, October 10, at 6:00 p.m.
John C. Hodges Library Auditorium
Hosted by Louisa Trott

This selection of short films will include some of the earliest moving images and pioneering techniques in microscopy, X-ray imaging, and time-lapse. Silent films and 16-mm projections will be accompanied by original electronic musical compositions created by student Cullen Burke.

Louisa Trott coordinates the team that creates our digital collections. Trott is both a librarian and a film archivist. Her research focuses on historical moving image and photographic processes.


“Family Day: Moving Pictures!”
Saturday, November 9, 1:00–4:00 p.m.
McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture
Hosted by Louisa Trott

At this workshop — part of the museum’s free monthly programming for families — Louisa Trott will help people craft their own zoetropes and flipbooks, which create the illusion of handheld motion pictures. Visitors will be able to interact with displays of film and photography technology, and vintage cartoons and comedies will be shown — on a film projector! — throughout the afternoon.


“Film Screening: Cinema of Science”
Thursday, November 14, at 6:00 p.m.
McClung Museum Auditorium
Hosted by Michael Deike

The event showcases two films that bring complex, unimaginable science to a broad audience: an episode from the 1980 Cosmos series with Carl Sagan alongside an episode of the rebooted version with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Both shows mark transitions in the way physics utilized the artistry of cinema for communication.

Michael Deike is a public services librarian at the John C. Hodges Library and a lifelong film enthusiast. He hosts monthly screenings and discussions of foreign and independent films at Hodges Library.


Though it’s not a part of the Science in Motion activities, the Libraries has also partnered with McClung Museum to host:

“Preservation Party: Picture Perfect”
Wednesday, December 4, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture
Hosted by Amanda Richards
Ticketed event. Refreshments and cash bar. Guests must be 21 or older.

There’s nothing like the charm of old photos from by-gone eras. Learn how to properly care for and showcase your vintage photographs.

Amanda Richards is the UT Libraries’ preservation technician. On her vlog, Get to the Point in Library Preservation, Richards shares some of the techniques she uses to preserve the libraries’ fragile or special collections.


Trailblazing photographer Berenice Abbott believed that photography could be “a friendly interpreter between science and the layman.” Visit the free exhibition Science in Motion, on view through January 5, 2020, at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture to learn how groundbreaking photographers captured the unseen physics of movement.