Information Services Team Blog

The 37th Toronto International Film Festival is coming up soon, from September 6th to 16th, 2012. If you are suffering from a serious case of film fest fever, find relief through the library and get Film Indexes Online!

 Image of Fumeo film projector by Mattia Luigi Nappi via Wikimedia Commons. Used under Creative Commons license.

 
Previously accessible from Research and Reference branches only, Film Indexes Online is now available from any Toronto Public Library branch or from home using your library barcode and PIN, which is great news for serious researchers, students, and film buffs alike.

Film Indexes Online is a portal to three top-notch film resources:

1.American Film International Catalog (AFI)

AFI documents over 48,000 American feature films produced between 1893 and 1973. Most records include substantial plot summaries and comprehensive filmographic information, plus citations for reviews and articles. Includes the popular "AFI 100 Years…" series of cinematic milestones, such as AFI's Top 100 Movies, Top 25 Musicals, and Top 50 Stars. Compiled by the American Film Institute (AFI) and updated twice annually.

2. FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Plus (FIAF Plus)

FIAF Plus provides abstracts and full-text articles from some 340 academic and popular film periodicals from 1972 to the prsent. Produced in collaboration with the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and updated monthly.

3. Film Index International (FII)

FII features cross-referenced records for 120,000 films and 750,000 film personalities from over 180 countries. Coverage is from 1900 to the present and includes all genres of film, from the first silent movies to the most recent blockbusters. Also includes international film awards, searchable plot summaries, and annotated citations. Based on the Summary of Information on Film and Televison (SIFT) database from the British Film Institute (BFI) and updated twice annually.

Film Indexes Online can be used to search all three databases at the same time or each separately. With the all-in-one search you can search or browse by keyword, film title, date, or person. The search interface supports Boolean, exact, truncation, and proximity searching. For more advanced searches, you can search each database separately to take advantage of unique functionality (e.g., hierarchical subject thesauri).

For a video demonstration of how to use Film Indexes Online click here.

Wondering how the Film Indexes Online database compares to the freely available website resource Internet Movie Database (IMDB)? To find out, I searched for one of my all-time favourite films, Rear Window, in both resources.

Here is some of what I found:

Source material: 

The AFI record in Film Indexes Online notes that the film is based on the short story "It Had To Be Murder" by Cornell Woolrich, published in Dime Detective in February 1942, and includes a brief publication history of the story. The IMDB record, by comparison, simply lists Cornell Woolrich under "Writing credits".

Subject indexing:

The AFI record includes two genre headings (Mystery, Suspense), plus dozens of primary and secondary cross-referenced subject headings (e.g., Apartment buildings, Voyeurism, Traveling salesmen). IMDB, on the other hand, includes three genre headings (Mystery, Romance, Thriller) but lacks controlled subject headings.

References:

The combined records in Film Indexes Online include approximately 200 citations to reviews and articles, including approximately three dozen that were published at the time of the film's original release. The IMDB record does not include any citations to published reviews or articles, but does include hundreds of user reviews and an active message board.

In sum, while IMDB is a useful and popular ready reference tool, Film Indexes Online in the resource to use for more complex reference questions and scholarly research.

Happy film fest everyone!