The BRITISH NATIONAL FILM CATALOGUE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO INFORMATION WORK

Abstract

The present state of film information is nothing short of chaotic. Individual organizations do sometimes keep records of films in their own fields of interest and occasionally publish these lists. The Educational Foundation for Visual Aids has catalogues of films of use in direct teaching; the Royal Institute of Chemistry has published a list of films on chemistry; the Scientific Film Association has published many catalogues on different subjects but these are restricted—because the Association lacks funds—to subjects on which another body is prepared to spend money. The British Film Institute has extensive records but these exist only in the form of its own card indexes and are available only at the Institute's premises. If information is to be wholly useful, it must be freely available and known to be available. The haphazard nature of current sources of film information makes it extremely difficult for the outsider to use them.

Citation

CHIBNALL, B. (1963), "The BRITISH NATIONAL FILM CATALOGUE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO INFORMATION WORK", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 141-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb049926