“By your students, you are taught”. This truism, from Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The King & I” was never truer than in the Brave New World of Film Studies at Harvard. Every month, the number of students I meet, classes I visit, and faculty I consult tells me more and more about the rich and widening world of film studies reference and research. As this is my first blog entry, it will be filled with a potpourri of recent transactions (all since January); I hope in the future to be able to update this blog monthly and spend more time detailing specific research or reference quests.
I have met with or corresponded with many members of the Harvard faculty — Matthew Levay, Haden Guest, Timothy Hyde, Cemat Kafedar, Steven Caton, Joanna Lipper, Louis Menand, and Tamsin Jones. Haden is teaching a course on Hitchcock, and virtually his entire class has come to visit me at one point or another for research advice. I’ve fielded questions about Korean film which I referred to the Yenching Library, and questions about Ukrainian film that was passed on to our Russian specialists.
Researchers have made personal appointments with me to consult pieces of the Harvard Film Archive collection — the John Marshall Collection, the Jan Lenica Collection, and the Hollis Frampton Collection. I’ve also started to call back (from the Depository) boxes of film stills from the Lothar and Eva Just Film Stills Collection. I’ve worked with the Harvard Library selectors in French (Mary Beth Clack), German (Sebastian Hierl) and Spanish/Latin America (Lynn Shirey).
And, of course, you are looking at one of my newest and most interesting accomplishments, the Library Guide to Film Research at Harvard, on our new Springshare platform, which is replacing the old Reel Research i-site. Keep watching this spot for more chatter, questions, and updates!
