Cinémathèque française: The Digital Library Collection

>> View collection  La Cinémathèque française has a precious book collection which retraces the long adventure of the prehistory of the cinema and photographic and film techniques. The approximately 280 books of this collection date back to the 17th century and can be found on EFG.
 
 

 
Detailed description provided by the archive:
 La Cinémathèque française has a precious book collection, not much known by the public, which retraces the long adventure of the prehistory of the cinema and photographic and film techniques. There is also a collection of rare and essential documents which accompanies the collection of film apparatuses dating from the 18th century up to our days collected by the Cinémathèque française since its creation in 1936. There are technical booklets, instructions leaflets, advertisements, articles and catalogues, descriptions of the functioning of a specific apparatus or of several different systems. The oldest documents are mainly in the "Will Day collection". Wilfred Ernest Day (1873-1936) was an important figure of the English cinematographic industry. He was a dealer in devices for the cinema, a producer of movies, an inventor, historian and keen collector. His collection brings together works on optics, perspective, physiology, natural science and photography, and books published from 1895 treating technical aspects and the history of cinematographic art, particularly in Great Britain.