Kirkland House Master Tom C. Conley, a professor of Romance languages and literatures who teaches courses on film, stressed the unique quirks of maintaining a film archive.

“These are important films that are in there, and they have to be preserved, cared for,” he said. “I think you need someone who is a professional archivist.”

Conley praised Jenkins’ tenure as curator, saying he had been a major help to those teaching and studying film at Harvard.

“When I was doing research on hard-to-find films, he pulled 35 mm films right out of the archive and showed them just for me,” Conley said. “There’s been this sort of generosity and collegiality.”

Mitchell said there was a “huge interest in film studies” among students and faculty, which led to the approval last month of an undergraduate concentration track in the field within VES, to be introduced this fall.

He said that the archive’s contents will be added for the first time to Hollis, the University Library’s online catalog.

“It will allow broader use of the archive,” Mitchell said.

And Guzzetti said it still remains to be seen whether the archive will work under its new management.

“This is completely disruptive,” he said. “That kind of change creates tremendous uncertainty...in all quarters.”

He added it might be as many as five years before “everyone knows whether the character of the archives will change.”

“It isn’t just a question that’s going to be answered in the next few months,” he said.

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached vozick@fas.harvard.edu.