Penn State's working collection of about 23,000 films will migrate to an on-campus location at the Wagner Building annex this month, and Media Tech services will open its second office location there as well.

The films--which include 16-mm, half-inch VHS and DVD formats--are currently stored in the Special Services Building located near the University Park Airport, 2535 Fox Hill Road.

Located directly behind the Wagner Building, the new Wagner annex location is a small, one-story building that used to be a studio space for WPSU-FM, Penn State's public broadcasting station.

The annex will house not only the film collection, but an additional Media Tech office for over-the-counter media equipment rental. William Bishop, director of Media Tech, said he expects the site to be fully functional by the start of the spring semester.

The current Media Tech office, the sole location where students and faculty can go to check out equipment like laptops, video cameras and iPods, is located in the basement of the Willard Building.

Dave Bagley, manager of media technology, is in charge of the distribution of media tech equipment. He said the opportunity for opening a second location arose when the department was asked to vacate the Special Services Building and had to take its film collection and extra equipment to the Wagner annex.

"We thought it would be nice to have another location on the other side of campus to make it more convenient," Bagley said.

Bishop said it will be easier for East Halls students to visit the Wagner annex site, and vehicles will have more space to park.

In addition to equipment and film rental, there will also be rooms where students can access high-quality cameras and computers equipped with Mac video editing software.

With the film collection now on campus grounds, it will no longer be necessary to transport films requested by faculty and students via a mail courier from the Special Services Building to campus.

Now, students and faculty can walk in with a request and leave with a film.

"The goal of being on campus is to have the films more accessible to students and faculty," said Daniel Johnston, who oversees circulation for the university's film and video collection.

Prior to the move, Johnston said the university slimmed down its collection by getting rid of any extra or unnecessary copies of films, which were then "disposed of" because they could not be passed on to other owners because of copyright laws.

The collection, which Bagley said began in the mid-1940s to document World War II, consists of a variety of film that is primarily used for teaching purposes, ranging from footage of walking on the moon to old propaganda films, PBS presentations and feature-length films.