The Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture

http://www.centres.ex.ac.uk/bill.douglas/menu.html

Some areas of this website, such as Tour of the Collection, are a bit slow to load, but having said that it is still an impressive resource.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Virtual Exhibitions includes features on Hitchcock, D.W. Griffith, Houdini and Charlie Chaplin, as well as material about the precursors of cinema, such as magic lantern shows and other optical entertainments. Clicking on any of these leads to a further set of links that expand on the topic in question. The information is verbal rather than pictorial.

Teaching & Learning introduces the courses available at Exeter University, where the Centre is located. The best explanation of the Bill Douglas Centre's function is found here under Online Articles and Web Pages by Staff and Students, where Duncan Petrie's report for the magazine 'Screen' is published in full.

Finally, Related Websites, linked from the bottom of the film-reel index on the homepage, offers an excellent list that will generally reward exploration. It includes lists of Film Museums and Collections, among them a link to the National Museum at Bradford.

For background information about the history of cinema, this is excellent, though it is not specifically a guide to memorabilia for collectors.