Sarah Baker credits her student job in Southwestern's Special Collections library with inspiring her to become an historian. "And had I not worked with (library assistant) Sheran Johle, I might not have fully developed my appreciation for silent films," she says.

Baker will return to Georgetown this month to share her passion with the entire community during the Mary Pickford Film Festival, an event she has organized that will be held at the Palace Theater June 6-8. The festival will raise money for both the theater and Baker's ongoing documentary film project on the life of silent film star Olive Thomas.

"I began researching Olive Thomas while I was at Southwestern. I found that most of the 20 films she made in the early 1900s were left unpreserved or lost. The more I learned about her life and work, the more I realized that hers was a story that needed to be told."

She first approached Timeline Films about the project while working with the company on "Silent Sisters," a film festival she created for the Women's Museum of Dallas in Jan. 2002. While they had heard little of Thomas, they told Baker they were interested in producing a documentary if she would write the screenplay.

Less than a year later her script was complete, and she hopes to wrap up the film in time to debut at Cinecon, the annual Hollywood silent film festival held over Labor Day weekend. "I hope by doing this I can raise awareness of her work with a new generation of viewers."

Baker was born and raised in Georgetown, and her parents met as students at Southwestern. So when it came time to choose a college, she says, "I felt like I had history with the University. I was very comfortable there." She entered as an English major, but after her experience in the John G. Tower Library she changed to history and women's studies.

"One of the most important things I learned at SU as a historian is to have a point and find your evidence to support your point. Not one of my professors, no matter what class or department I was in, allowed us to have a 'flabby' argument. I am a much more concise writer because of it. It's a valuable gift. And seeing a lot of the Hollywood biographies that are published today, I realize it's a rarity too!"

After graduating, she accepted a prestigious internship with the Sixth Floor Museum at the old Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. She went on to work for the Texas Women's Museum before landing her current job as an interlibrary loan librarian at the University of Texas at Arlington, where her husband, Zachary, is studying mechanical engineering.

"With the documentary, I feel like I have two full-time jobs right now! I'm spending nights, weekends and even lunch breaks working on the film. But this is what I want to do with my life--work as a film historian. It's a very exciting time for me."