Where can you go to see footage of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, Leonard Bernstein, and early Saturday Night Live? Are you a fan of the Academy Awards, Negro League baseball, and Andy Warhol? Perhaps you are delighted by radio's treasures, such as Winston Churchill’s speeches, The War of the Worlds, or The Hitchhiker. Or if you enjoy jingles, sing along to old radio commercials for Chun King Chop Suey or Bayer Aspirin.

Visit The Museum of Television & Radio and explore their exciting collection of over 100,000 radio and television programs, ranging from sitcoms and soap operas to dramas and documentaries. At the Museum, you will have access to the most significant moments and people of the twentieth century and beyond and can go wherever pictures, sounds, imagination, and intellect can take you.

There are many things that are unique about this Museum, what you see and how you see it, and your visit here may be very different than other museum visits you have made.

Say goodbye to sore feet and hello to comfortable chairs. The exhibitions are actually screenings of programs from The Museum’s collection that run throughout the day in different screening rooms. In the past they've screened David Bowie’s television work, a marathon of Sex in the City programs, and retrospectives of Beyond the Fringe, Monty Python, and Twilight Zone and the television work of John Cassavetes and Steven Sondheim.

You can watch your favorite programs or do research for school in the Museum's library where access is free with admission. When you enter the museum, make a reservation at the front desk to visit the library, and when it's time for your visit, make your way up to the library on the fourth floor. You'll use a computer to find the programs you want to see of the Museum's collection. You can do your search in a variety of ways, typing in keywords or titles, for instance. Each program description you will see in your search provides a summary of the plot, if there is one, and lists the actors, directors, producers and animators who worked on the show.

Once you have made your selection, the library staff will locate your tapes within fifteen minutes and instruct you to go to one of the Console Rooms to watch your program in a comfortable cubicle with headphones and a television monitor. When the Library is really busy, you can stay at your console for a limit of two hours, but if the room isn’t full, you can stay much longer.

Be aware that if you choose to search in the archives as opposed to the on-site collection, you might have to wait as long as a week for the programs to arrive at the Museum from storage, so that you can watch them. If you know you are interested in archival material, plan ahead! If you want to know if the show you want to see is actually at the Museum and not in storage, you should call ahead to ask the Librarian. But since the Librarians are so busy, don’t call and ask them to check a zillion things for you. If you plan on spending a lot of time searching or if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, you should come and search for yourself.

The Museum serves as an educational resource in several ways. Typically, museum educators lead classes scheduled by teachers every morning and on certain afternoons by special arrangement. These ninety minute classes are media-based and examine specific themes. Topics include the Cold War, documentary filmmaking, advertising, the Civil Rights Movement, New York City, political advertising, violence, and portrayals of women on television. Classes include clips from news, documentary and prime-time programming, as well as advertising. These classes are usually organized as a school trip by a teacher.

If you are researching a particular subject or studying for Regents exams, call the Education Department to inquire whether or not there is a videography on the subject. Each videography lists programs on a given topic or area of study and a videography has been created for each class taught at The Museum. If your topic is not included in the class list at The Museum, call ahead to find out if an educator can recommend some programs for you. In addition to videographies, there are some review materials available at The Museum for the Global and American History Regents exams, including worksheets and sample essays.

Even if you don't happen to be preparing for Regents, videographies are still good sources of information. Be warned: there is a lot of film in one videography. One sample essay on human rights (a review for Global) includes seven different programs that each range from thirty to ninety minutes in length. You may want to set aside an entire day to view the suggested programs, or plan to make multiple visits to the museum.

A good program for high school students to reference is Witness to History, covering many themes (Immigration, Cold War, Civil Rights, The Sixties, Human Rights, and Media/News). For true history junkies, The Museum also has many multi-part miniseries on topics such as New York City, United States history, intellectual history, Western art and architecture, immigration, Henry Ford, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, computers, and the 20th Century in America.

While everyone loves television, don’t overlook The Museum’s radio collection. You can listen to anything from Winston Churchill’s speeches to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats to The Shadow, Superman, as well as many other radio dramas. Although what I'm about to suggest is strictly fun and most probably not going to help you at all with your research, it's worth a mention: If you can gather a group of about 20 students, with $150.00 to spend, you can record an old-time radio drama script or even an original one if you're ambitious. You'll use your voice to make every one of the characters come alive, and add the sound effects too.

In the evenings the Museum regularly schedules seminars for the public on a wide range of topics such as the history of the relationship between the media and the military, or how African Americans are depicted on television. Prominent journalists, writers, producers and actors participate in live discussions in the MT&R Theater. The Museum tapes every seminar and places it in the Library for later use. Check the website for upcoming seminars, and if you are interested in attending, either purchase a ticket at the front desk at a student rate, or contact the Education Department, to inquire whether there are any complimentary tickets available.

For student-related questions, contact Claire Riccardi, Coordinator for High School Programs at (212) 621-6724, or email her at criccardi@mtr.org. For general Museum questions or for a schedule of events and programs, call the front desk at (212) 621-6600. You can also go online to the Museum’s website [www.mtr.org] for information about past, current, and future exhibitions as well as programs and events.