The East Anglian Film Archive, the UK's first regional film archive, offers a unique record of the East of England's social and cultural history. As part of the University of East Anglia, we continue to lead moving image heritage research and inspire audience participation through community projects and events. Our collections represent a broad range of amateur and professional creativity, from 1896 to the present day.
Library Offers Alternative Tales
Stevenage Library finds a receptive audience for children's books which take a fresh approach to gender roles.
Hertfordshire libraries are actively seeking to avoid stereotyping in the books offered for children's reading and promote works which play down traditional gender roles. A boy interviewed at a story session finds the characters in the alternative tales true to life and it looks like the children are ready to accept different role models, such as girls who want careers and boys who show their emotions.The library staff are aware this might appear too radical and seek to justify their concern about balance in representation while being a bit wary of wider public opinion. Librarian Ann Henderson is interviewed, and introduces the children to Babette Cole's picture book, Princess Smartypants. A talk and exhibition about non-sexist books for children will be held at Stevenage Central Library in Hertfordshire to coincide with Stevenage Borough Council's 'Her' Week.The reporter was Owen Spencer-Thomas for this video made to be shown in a news story on Anglia Television's early evening news / magazine programme About Anglia.
Once upon a time... How television celebrates the joy of reading
The magic of reading is all in the mind, with words and pictures lighting up our imaginations and taking us on extraordinary journeys without us ever having to leave our armchairs. And yet, the relationship between books and television has existed since the very beginning, with countless stories making the leap from page to screen and back again.
Picking up the baton from radio, television was the great entertainer and educator of the latter half of the 20th century. Dramatisations of literary classics and contemporary page-turners are a familiar fixture in TV schedules, but beyond the art of adaptation lie programmes that capture the joy of reading, that bring books to life and that take us behind the curtain to meet the beloved wizards and dreamweavers whose work delights us all.
This is no more the case than in the world of children’s books and, more broadly, learning to read. Within this collection, you will find documentaries and discussion programmes, government campaign films and local news reports, magazine shows and more. And at the heart of it all is the power of the story and the written word, and the simple, magical pleasure of reading and being read to.
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin.
