Series 13 - Records of the Department of Media Services and Media Resources

In 1973, the Department of Media Services was established bringing together the functions of the former Audio Visual Resources and Broadcasting Departments, and of Communication Education because their work often overlapped. The impact of that was that film was seem as a medium appropriate ether to projection on a screen or to broadcasting on television, while taped radio programs could be used as an audio tape for inter church educational use. The traditional boundaries disappeared which also included the sale of material between departments. In 1983 the Department of Media Resources was established by adding the Education for Mission function. Thus Berkeley Studio, AVEL, the Audio Visual Consultant and the mission interpretation and education programme became components of this new Department. The Department participated in various interdenominational bodies including Interchurch Broadcasting, the World Association for Christian Communication, the communication wing of the National Council of Churches of Christ (U.S.A.), the media magazine Media and Values, the Canadian Church Press and Associated Church Press. Berkeley Studio was responsible for production of radio and television, film and still pictures (photographs, filmstrips, slides), and was involved in the production of material for Vision TV, the Canadian interfaith religious television network. With restructuring in the late 1990s and early 2000s the unit became the Audio Visual Unit under the Resource Development Cluster in 1999, then Berkeley Studio from 2002 to 2006, and Multi Media Producer under Graphics and Print Unit Creative Services from 2013 to the present.