The collection contains over 20,000 books ranging from the mid-17th century to the present day.

They range from scholarly analyses of films and the social history of the cinema to sensationalist paperback biographies of the stars. Categories within the book collections include: film annuals, children's books, criticism, historical studies, biographies (both on single subjects and on collections of people such as comic stars or stars from a particular Hollywood studio), screenplays, books on specific films, fiction (book of the film, books about the film industry, and books written by film personalities), non-fiction by film personalities, books on pre-cinema entertainments (such as the magic lantern, shadow puppets, panoramas and Victorian animated entertainments), books on cinema buildings, studies of Hollywood and Los Angeles, TV and radio plays and works on the broadcast media.

 

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