One of our librarians suggests idealist.org for job listings from organizations with non-profit status. They have quite a large database of jobs & organizations.
Internet Public Library under Special Collections /
Associations might be a source of contact information to organizations. Similarly, Librarians' Index to the Internet has a Charities and Nonprofits category
Specifically, the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement seems to have career tools for researchers. Before you put up the $150
membership fee, it appears there is some free information on their pages that could be of help. But for sure, it won't hurt to plow through more of those lii.org nonprofit sites also. My experience is that lii.org has some dead links, but it's well worth putting up with those to get a bit more filtered look at the web than the big search engines will give you (even in their directories).
You can also try searching the whole websites on lii.org and ipl.org for the word cinema, or films, since that is your area. There could be organizations hiding inside some of those pages. A dirtier, but maybe profitable search would be in the Google Directory
(under MORE). The search: "think tanks" media got 600+ hits. Compare that with the web as a whole - "think tanks" media site:edu gets 90,000+. "media think tanks" site:edu gets 244,
and possibly there could be leads in there.
If you are near a reasonably fair-sized public library system, or college/university library, they will very probably have an online version of Associations Unlimited, or Gale Ready Reference. I tried searching "cinema" in free text (anywhere in the record) in Gale Ready Reference "Organizations" section, and got 127 hits. Probably it would be best to stay
with that list; limiting to "Research Centers" knocks out all but 11 - most of which seem to be University research centers, many of them overseas.
It can't hurt to try searches on the web, like "progressive media" research center site:edu (247 hits in google). Some of the business databases can be quite helpful too - for example
Hoovers has a "Foundations" category in its "Industries" (browse industries) section. Related areas are: Charitable Organizations, Cultural Institutions, and Education. The trick
will be to check ahead to make sure the particular library you are using has the "Pro" subscription to Hoovers, so you can see more than the top 10 organizations. To find libraries that have commercial databases such as Gale Ready Reference and Hoovers Online, it helps to use directories like Libweb
Although library web sites all have a different cosmetic appearance, they mostly follow a
pattern of listing "databases", "online resources", "search articles in journals, magazines. etc", or "online reference shelf" on their home page or at least in their "site index". Those are the hints that lead you to online resources, and libraries generally allow on-site access to the public, though you may have to sign up for half-hour slots. I generally have very good luck in academic libraries - especially if I go in off-hours when plenty of terminals are available. Some library websites do NOT even let you see what databases they have until you sign in or go there in person. But fortunately most WILL tell you what resources they have - they just won't let you login from off site without a user ID number. This is because of strict license agreements with the publishers.
Jim Miller
U of MD
