We Love Our Library!

It was an odd idea that one day just seemed to jump fully formed into my brain: to work our way through history by viewing classic film. Our kids have always enjoyed classics whenever we've watched them and have been interested in developments such as color, sound and the evolution special effects. By taking our time to view films in order, I figured we'd gain a unique understanding of the growth of cinema through time and a front row seat for cinematic evolution, not to mention the rare experience of really immersing ourselves in our own history and culture. It seemed a perfect way to take a vacation at home this summer.

I spent a fair amount of time assembling a list of films, researching titles, stars, directors and milestones, to get a body of excellent film to watch. Then we began by watching many of the earliest entries (available in the public domain) online. As our list grew, I began to explore the library as our source for films and, wow, was I blown away. Almost every time I would search the library for a title that I wanted, the system had it!

Almost every dvd we've watched in our festival since the mid-1920s (and a few before that) is in the collections of the Pima County Library system. I have been continually amazed at the depth of their selection of classic film.

Best still, by using the interlibrary loan process, we could very easily request any title and usually within a day or two, it would show up at our local branch. As I sit writing this, we have now checked out over 30 titles from the library over the summer -- and that's only up through the mid-1940s, where we are now. It was a fun adventure to search for titles and then go pick them up on our shelf when they came in.

Without this resource, I really don't think we'd have been able to do the project. And that makes just one more reason why we love our library!