The collections at VSW showcase the aesthetics, cultural history, and social uses of still and moving images. Holdings encompass both creative work and vernacular objects, as well as items that represent the history of media use.
Nathan Lyons Research Center
Hours
Monday–Friday: 10am–4:30pm;
By appointment.For more information
Please contact jessicajohnston@vsw.org or taranelson@vsw.org
Watch Portable Channel Videos
Portable Channel was a Rochester, NY non-profit (1971–1987) founded by documentary filmmaker and activist Bonnie Sherr Klein.
Search Moving Image Collections
Search selections from the moving image collections.
Listen to the VSW Audio Collection
Listen to selected audio recordings from the VSW audio collection.
Search Books and Periodicals
Search the books in the Nathan Lyons Research Center Library
Search Photography Collections
Search selected photographs from the Visual Studies Workshop photography collection.
Search The Joan Lyons Independent Press Archive
Search artist’s books in the Independent Press Archive
Lantern Slide Collection
The VSW Lantern Slide Archive houses a collection of over 60,000 nineteenth and early twentieth century glass lantern slides and related equipment.
Primary Resources
Documents and correspondence related to photographic artists and historians from the mid 1960s through the 1980s.
Joseph Selle Fox Movie Flash Collection
The Fox Movie Flash collection, photographed by Joseph N. Selle and his crew of street photographers, consists of approximately one million images of people on the streets of San Francisco from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Soibelman Syndicate News Agency Archive
The Soibelman Syndicate News Agency Archive is an extensive and diverse collection of more than 40,000 news agency photographs from the interwar period.