Starring role for Culpeper

Library of Congress audio-visual center expected to attract film buffs to Virginia

By DONNIE JOHNSTON

Date published: 11/10/2004

Film repository comes into focus

When the Library of Congress' National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper is completed in May 2006, there will be ample storage space for America's old films.

How much space?

According to Greg Lukow, chief of the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, the linear shelf space on two floors of the three-story Collections Building will total 56 miles.

That's a lot of old movies.

Lukow, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-7th District, and Assistant Librarian Deanna Marcum presented an overview yesterday of the partially completed $170 million project to a packed house of Culpeper-area community leaders.

"There is no place like this in the world," Cantor told the crowd, jokingly referring to the facility as "a mega-Blockbuster." "This will be a terrific asset for Culpeper."

Construction of the first phase of the project at the old Federal Reserve Bank site on Mount Pony east of Culpeper began in August 2000.

The Federal Reserve storage area, which was all underground, was unearthed and refurbished. This will become the Collections Building, which will store nearly 3 million sound and radio recordings and more than 1 million films.

More than 18 million feet of vintage Fox Movietone newsreel film will be among the items stored.

"We have the original negatives of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman from the movie 'Casablanca,'" Lukow said. "We have film shot by Thomas Edison."

The Collections Building opens in May. The Conservation Building, now under construction, will be completed a year later.

This second facility will contain offices, restoration facilities and a 200-seat movie theater that will host public screenings as often as three times a week.

When two smaller storage pods are finished, the Library of Congress will have a 400,000-square-foot facility unlike any other in the world.

David Woodley Packard and his philanthropic Packard Foundation purchased the Mount Pony site in 1998 and formed a partnership with the Library of Congress.

The foundation is spending $120 million to build the center to Library of Congress specifications. When completed, the facility will be turned over to the federal government.

While the Packard Foundation is footing the construction bill, Congress has earmarked another $50 million for equipment and set-up costs.

Follow us on

Date published: 11/10/2004