A Critical View of Some Major Libraries: The Perspective of an Early Cinema Historian

For over two decades I have been researching early cinema. Given that the theme of my research is motion pictures, you might think that I would spend most of my research time in film archives, viewing surviving films from this era. But in fact my interest lies less in the style and development of early films and more in what people at the time thought and wrote of these films. More information about "reception" is to be found in contemporary books and journals and not, of course, in film prints. Furthermore, because film was a new medium, the most novel information is often found in printed works from non-film disciplines, such as photography, theater, and optics. To find these sources it has been essential for me to research in major, multisubject libraries and archives.

In the course of this research I have learned much about which libraries have the most appropriate resources and which are the most user-friendly. Over the years I have formedmy own opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of particular libraries. The following is my guide to aspects of library research in several different countries, though principally in Britain, France, and the United States. I concentrate on the national libraries, plus selected libraries with cinema specializations. In addition to offering description and guidance for users, this is a critique and polemic about these libraries, suggesting which libraries have got things right and wrong in a number of different policy areas, including location and design, ease in obtaining accreditation and admission, particular strengths of collections, quality of catalogs, and policies on preservation versus access. I have been influenced by the indispensable book by Paolo Cherchi-Usai, Silent Cinema.¹ But while Cherchi-Usai's thoughtful book is mainly a guide for researchers who plan to view films in film archives, my article is about researching equivalent non-film materials.

I should add that this essay is not without its contentious side, as I believe that some libraries I cover have some aspects that are less than admirable. I have tried to be honest about my findings and conclusions: in the process I will no doubt offend some in the library community. For this I apologize, especially if I have been unknowingly unjust, though I must emphasize that my conclusions are generally founded on extensive use of the resources in the libraries that I describe. My critique, therefore, is based on experience.

General Considerations

Location, Design, and Size of the Library

The physical space available obviously affects how many books and other materials a library may collect and hold and how many users it can accommodate. A building that is too small or inefficiently designed will limit the amount of material that the library feels able to acquire: space considerations have probably restricted accessions in some British libraries. A more remote location will allow for a larger building, but this might mean that the library might be underused. Some newspaper repositories and the newer "library facility" buildings fall into this category, though many would argue that the benefit of being able to store huge amounts of material probably outweighs the disadvantages of discouraging use or delaying delivery to more central sites.