One of the things that kept getting put off when we moved from our previous location at MovieTech Studios to our current location in Lawndale is organizing the many, many boxes of documents and printed materials I have collected over the years. Many of these items are service and parts manuals for various cameras, but there is also a large collection of brochures and publicity documents. We use this library for our research, as well as for many of the repairs and restorations I have shared. The collection includes operation, service, and parts manuals for cameras like the Bell & Howell 2709, Eyemo, and Filmo; Auricon Super 1200; Cine Kodak Special; Arriflex 35 2B/2C/III and the various models of the 16 and 35 BL; Mitchell Standard, GC, NC, BNC, 16 Pro, SS R16, MK II, and MK III; MovieCam SuperAmerica; Bolex H16; Photo-Sonics 16 and 35 high speed cameras; O’Connor fluid head; and many, many others. Additionally, we have shop blueprints from Fries Engineering, shop blueprints for the Twentieth Century-Fox Cine Simplex camera, vintage issues of The Journal of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, as well as books on many different aspects of the history of motion pictures and the people and equipment that made them. I haven’t catalogued them yet, but the collection also contains several file cabinets full of my original drawings, blueprints, and notes for projects I have designed and built over the last 40-odd years. Over the last week or so, we have organized and labeled this library, and made a spreadsheet to catalog everything that we have. It is a relief to finally have this done so I can actually find what I have!
