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Help Turn the World's Largest Collection of Movies into a Nonprofit

2 pointsby sheltgoralmost 11 years ago

1 comment

sheltgoralmost 11 years ago
As context, Scarecrow is the world&#x27;s largest collection of home movies in every format imaginable, 120,000 titles in total. They&#x27;re based near the University of Washington, and have had a huge cult following for years. Problem is, with the increase in streaming and the huge drop in rentals they&#x27;ve seen a massive decline in recent years and they&#x27;ve reached the point where they can either close up shop and sell off their astounding collection (which contains countless movies that simply won&#x27;t ever be found somewhere like Netflix or Amazon), or try a new operating model.<p>Their new plan is to convert the store into a non-profit with an emphasis on preserving physical media, education on film history (they already do a lot of great outreach to local schools and it seems that they want to expand on that), and more.<p>Going to UW I can say that Scarecrow is a treasure, and it&#x27;d be a damn shame for it to disappear. I&#x27;m a big cinephile myself, and the experience of browsing through their incredible collection, or talking with their tremendously knowledgeable staff, and finding a movie I would have never before heard of, is one that I really hope doesn&#x27;t disappear.