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?