As we head towards the end of the year it’s the time to collect and collate the statistics for the use of our collections in 2011. By combining the information recorded in our enquiries database with the records of visitors to our reading room the most popular collections this year were… in third place the university’s own institutional records; in second the papers of the filmmaker Lindsay Anderson; and comfortably ahead in first place the John Grierson Archive.
Often described as ‘the father of documentary filmmaking’ John Grierson had a long and colourful career directing and producing documentaries, and making an important contribution to the development of filmmaking in Britain and the Commonwealth. Grierson’s archive provides a comprehensive record of his working life, from his work as a pioneering documentary filmmaker in the 1920s, the establishment of the GPO Film Unit in the 1930s, and National Film Board of Canada in the 1940s, through to his later years when he brought the best of the world’s documentary films into the living rooms of Scottish viewers in the late 1950s and early 1960s on the television programme This Wonderful World.
The wide variety of subjects related to Grierson for which we received enquiries in the past 12 months reflects his long and varied career. And their geographical spread highlight his international importance and influence with enquiries received, and researchers visiting the archive, from across Europe, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Deposited with the university in the early 1970s the Grierson Archive has been a major resource for those interested in the history of documentary and the development of cinema for many years. Our statistics for this year show quite clearly that the collection’s research possibilities have yet to be exhausted!
