The Hollywood Librarian
The Hollywood Librarian is Coming! The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians through Film premiered at the American Library Association Conference in June 2007. Since then it has been shown at dozens of venues in the United States, as well as a few in Canada, England and Ireland. UTPA Library has been trying to get the film since October.
But on March 28 it is finally coming! And just in time for FESTIBA! And how more fitting can you get than showing such a film as 300 librarians descend on UTPA for Librarian’s Day!
This film will take the viewer on both a light-hearted and more serious ride through the history of librarians. It breaks the myth that we often see in the movies, of librarians having nothing more to do than checking out books. Films such as Sophie's Choice, Philadelphia and It's a Wonderful Life show librarians as negative stereotypes. However, librarians in Lorenzo's Oil, Desk Set and The Shawshank Redemption are competent and professional.
This documentary shows librarians in real life managing a business, worrying about customer service, marketing, merchandizing, etc. The film hits on some big issues with librarians - censorship, inadequate budgets, confidentiality. In this film you will meet a dedicated children's librarian, a witty library director, a high-tech corporate librarian, a smart medical librarian, and a dedicated cataloger. You will see the challenges created by shrinking financial support and increased materials costs. You will see older librarians who have watched the explosion of technology and younger librarians who were born into the information age.
The idea for this film came to writer and director Ann Seidl in 1995 when she was a library science student. Like many librarians she found a contast between the way she saw herself and her colleagues and the way librarians were portrayed in the movies. So she decided to make this film to combat the bad sterotypes and to prove what a noble profession librarianship is. In the process she waded through some 400 movies that portray librarians. The purpose of documentary is to increase the public's awareness of the complex and democratic nature of librarianship in the age of technology.
"The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film" will be shown at 8:15 a.m., Thursday, March 28 in the UTPA Fine Arts Auditorium. Admission is free and the public is invited.
