There has never been a successful archive/Museum to preserve the art of the moving image in the United States. I find it fascinating that for all the wealth in Hollywood no one has ever been philanthropic enough to create a museum to preserve the visual history of movies. I suspect the main reason is the cost to maintain and acquire exhibits and the logistics required to run such an endeavor.
What I wish to propose is an Online museum where the donations would be made by people within the community.
I want to expand that idea to include digital art work and effects from television shows and video games.
In relation to video games, most people tend to regard VGs with a certain amount of distain. It is widely believed that this form of entertainment cannot be considered art. I would submit that this judgement is incorrect. Just look at "Journey" a downloadable game on the Playstation 3 and you'll quickly see what I mean.
I have created a "prototype" through Facebook of what I had in mind. This is simply a visual effects archive but it gets across the concepts that I am proposing.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coolvfx-visual-effects-archive-page/394337563989731
These images stored here would be for educational and historic preservation and not for resale or distribution. They would be donated by studios, individuals and companies interested in preserving entertainment history.
Ultimately this would be created by a custom database designer and not on Facebook. People wishing to access it would simply have to auto sign an agreement stating they will not distribute the images for profit.
In addition to photos, illustrations would be scanned and scripts and digital files would stored as well.