This file documents the program acquisition activities of NET on a program-by-program basis as a natural complement to the party-by-party approach of the subject file. Of the 797 programs represented here--some parts of series and others not--244 were pre-1958, 79 were begun in 1963 or later and 474 occurred sometime between the two. This file, then, documents primarily the preproduction period of NET programming, that is, that period when they secured most programming by outside contract or purchase.

Arranged alphabetically by program or series title, individual files contain correspondence and memos, evaluations and reports, agreements and contracts, proposals, expenditure requests, clippings, program research scripts and script outlines. They provide information on the origin of a program, its producer, cast, and budget, who used it, and occasionally information on its actual production. There is occasional information on fund raising, which is primarily found in Development.

Appended to the program title file are three small files. One, a file of miscellaneous loose scripts, grew from a small file that arrived intact from NET through addition of individual scripts that turned up during the processing which had no natural archival home. As such it constitutes a small script library--but NET may never have used it as such. Many of the scripts, which are arranged alphabetically by title, were rejects, that is, they were sent in to NET by aspiring writers and were never used. Some even lack an indication of who the writer was.

The second file is a group of program evaluations. NET engaged in program evaluation quite extensively, employing at one time program screeners whose sole responsibility was to screen films and pass judgement on their suitability for educational distribution to educational television stations. The programs were evaluated both as to their aesthetic value and content and as to their technical excellence. This file, although small and fragmentary, serves as an excellent indicator of the thoroughness with which NET approached their responsibility to provide quality programs and, in the reasons for their rejections of some programs, one learns as much about NET programming policies as he does in the files devoted to those programs they actually distributed.

The third file is a small, quite fragmentary selection of shipping orders. They are candidates for destruction at some future point, when the statisticians are satisfied that sufficient data about use of educational tv programs and public reaction to and acceptance of ETV is available.