Filming a Library

It was not an original idea, but the existence in the town of a very active and enthusiastic ciné society made it natural that a librarian should think of making a film about the public library. There have been films about books and libraries before, one of them being the National Book Council's film, but I wanted something much more local, and more definitely from the public library angle, to be shown in schools and to adult local audiences. My idea was to show a cross‐section of the work of the public library by tracing its influence on certain typical members of the community. I found it difficult to decide upon the exact approach. Should it be pure documentary, pure advertisement, or should the message be proclaimed under cover of a human story? At the cinema, nothing is more annoying than to see a film which, without warning, turns out to be an advertisement, and whenever that happens to me, I always make a mental note never to use the product advertised. So, for the proposed library film, the blatant advertisement approach was immediately ruled out.