Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal June 2008 Volume 6(3)

Film review

Reflected on the silver screen

CILIPS and the Career Development Group Scotland presented a screening of the The Hollywood Librarian in May. Gavin Stuart gives us his opinion of it.

A quick question: Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, and Julia Roberts have all played members of which profession? Here’s a clue: Batgirl was one too….

Still stuck? What if I told you that these characters are usually portrayed as prim and proper dames most often heard proffering sharp shhh-es whilst peering over horn-rimmed spectacles? Yes, librarians have had a fairly rough time of it in films, and it’s stereotypes such as these which Ann Seidl’s film The Hollywood Librarian attempts to dispel.

Seven years in the making, Seidl’s film intersperses clips from films with interviews with real-life librarians to, in her words, “examine the image and stereotypes of librarians”. It’s a noble venture, but one that ultimately – and unfortunately – fails.

While some of the clips are fun, Seidl’s scattergun approach to structure all too often leaves the viewer confused as to their relevance. Confusing matters further is the film’s lack of focus. The second half of the picture, which highlights the plight of US libraries in the face of budget cuts and closures, is so different in tone to what has gone before that it unbalances the whole venture.

There are undoubtedly high points: Nancy Pearl is the closest librarians have to a celebrity, and being in her company is a joy. Meanwhile, it’s impossible not to be moved by the inmates who run the San Quentin prison library. But surely a clip or two from The Shawshank Redemption would have been perfect here?

It’s hard to see exactly who this film is aimed at. Librarians surely know all the issues facing their profession intimately and will bemoan The Hollywood Librarian’s lack of depth, while the casual viewer will find little in the array of talking heads which will actually change any stereotyped images he or she may have about the people who novelist Spider Robinson called “the secret masters of the world”.

Information Scotland Vol. 6(3) June 2008

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.