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DOCUMENTARY FILM HISTORY
The Toronto and District Film Council, a volunteer society, has been making history by maintaining year after year a large circulating collection of 16 mm educational and documentary films for the benefit of the Toronto public. In other Canadian cities such a service would be a public responsibility offered as one of the services of the local public library. This collection, which now numbers about 2,500 films, is known as the Metropolitan Film Library.
Discussions have been held over the past year to see if a way could be found whereby the operation of the Metropolitan Film Library could become part of the public library system. Preliminary negotiatoins were initiated with six public library boards in Metro Toronto with a view to having the documentary film services in this area administered by a joint tax-supported body of professional librarians.
What the role of the Toronto and District Film Council will be a year or two from now is therefore uncertain.
In search for information it has been discovered that we do not have a collection of books, magazines, newspaper and other clippings about documentary films which is accessible to the general public for reference purposes. Such a collection would be a valuable adjunct to a film library. Soon most of our children will receive much of their education through the medium of film whether through a TV screen, a teaching machine, or a projector and screen. Some of them will be interested in reading about the history of film. Should such a collection be housed in a book branch of the metropolitan library system or in a centre devoted to film? Or is the new science museum to contain a reference library related to its technological displays? Whose responsibility is it to collect material about films in Toronto?
It is well known that Canada has a distinguished record and worldwide reputation for the production and distribution of documentaries, but this is a relatively recent development. Documentary films were being shown to community groups in Toronto long before the establishment of the National Film Board or the Canadian Film Institute, the two agencies which have had such a great influence in popularizing the use of documentary films across the country. It is this period, prior to the establishment of the National Film Society in 1935 (which later became the CFI) and the National Film Board in 1939, that we intend to deal with in REEL NEWS.
We will begin with a review of a book which we feel should become part of a collection devoted to the history of the documentary film in this city, viz., Motion Pictures in Education. It was published in 1923. (Reel News)
Ed. Note: Reel News is a monthly bulletin of the Toronto & District Film Council.