The UCLA Film and Television Archive, the largest university-based collection of film and television materials in the world, has launched an M.A. degree program in Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS).

This intensive two-year course of study will be offered beginning this fall. It will be the largest program of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.

"This new program will meet a pressing demand for a new generation of scholars and archivists in both the public and private sector," said Peter Wollen, chair of the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, which will offer the program jointly with the Department of Information Studies.

Said Michele Cloonan, chair of that department: "The MIAS program is unique in that it brings together the strengths of three internationally recognized UCLA units: the Department of Information Studies, the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media, and the Film and Television Archive."

The curriculum will link a rigorous course of study to hands-on activities in the archive and off-campus. Extensive apprenticeship opportunities will be available at archives, media libraries, film and television studios, laboratories, digital post-production houses and other facilities unique in the greater Los Angeles area.

"Moving images are arguably the most pervasive and influential media of the 20th century," said Steven Ricci, secretary general of the International Federation of Film Archives. "They are at once art form, historical document, cultural artifact, market commodity, political force and an omnipresent part of popular culture. If we consider the continual growth of media types and outlets, if we pay any attention at all to the rapid expansion of new technologies, such a program is simply crucial to our culture."

Graduates will work in national, regional and local archives; museums; historical societies; research institutes; production studios; broadcast companies; stock footage suppliers; film, video and sound transfer laboratories; digital post-production and restoration houses; and other preservation service providers.

For more details, log on to www.cinema.ucla.edu/5_Education/ educationFR.html.