Film has been a hot topic in Toronto the past few weeks. A librarian once asked students what they trusted more, what they read in a book or what they saw in a film? More than 50% said they trusted the film more than the text for research. It would seem to make sense, yes?  And yet more recently in a futuristic novel I was reading, the character had access to both original film clips from an event in history and written commentary. The person started with the film clips but quickly went on to read about the events noting that she did not have the background knowledge, nor the context, to fully understand the implications of what she was viewing in the film footage. I guess that is why documentaries are so wonderful. They provide both.

And we have one of the strongest collections of documentaries in Canada in our Sound and Moving Image Library (SMIL). If you do look at a film, be sure to cite it in your essays. Your professor could be very impressed. Do you have a favourite documentary?  

I just got a tablet, an iPad mini. My laptop, a MacBook Air, was too heavy to lug around the campus. My job is a lot like being a student (except that I don’t have exams). Every week I have to read documents and articles and write reports and communications. I also have to go to meetings all across the campus and thus opted to carry my laptop in lieu of paper.  Lately I have concluded paper would be lighter. The intent is that the iPad/tablet will be used every week to read my documents and hopefully to write small reports. Ideally it will be useful for many other things too.

One goal is relying less on printed materials while another is learning to enjoy the iPad’s many online options. I am addicted to paper books so thought I might embrace reading online by reading some graphic novels. My daughter loves reading online because as soon as she finishes a book she can acquire a new one over the web. I will report back in the fall how hooked to the tablet I have become. Meanwhile do you have any tips to get me started? I checked out Goodreads but the selection is too limited and I have read a lot of the titles in my favourite genres. So, now I have to learn how to remove an app.