SHORT TAKES : Einstein Video Is Relatively Lost
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COLUMBIA, S.C. — Nearly 4,000 feet of film on Albert Einstein that was part of the University of South Carolina’s Movietonews collection fell out of a delivery truck and has been missing for a week, officials say.
“From a historical standpoint, it is absolutely irreplaceable,” said Don McCallister, assistant archivist for the university’s News Film Library. “I can’t really put a dollar value on it. How do you put a dollar value on something that cannot be replaced?”
The film, which has historical value to researchers, shows Einstein appearing at various events during the 1930s.
The university was sending the film, which was packed in a 1-foot-square fiberboard carton, to Audio Plus Video International in Northvale, N.J., so it could be copied onto videotape for a French filmmaker, McCallister said.
On Feb. 27, a delivery truck carrying the film left the Federal Express office in Columbia. A few blocks down the road, the driver realized the back door had opened.
Federal Express workers searched the route but did not find the package.
“We are doing everything we can to try to find this package,” Sandra Munoz, a spokeswoman for Federal Express in Memphis, said today.
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