Popcorn and a Movie

"The Hollywood Librarian" is a documentary film that covers the complete history of libraries and advocates for them as being an important part of society that must be kept in existence. It is filled with great interviews, film clips, and sound bites that elegantly get their point across with little sense of preaching to the viewer. While watching "The Hollywood Librarian" I feel as though the movie flowed between three different themes about libraries. The first theme was the importance of libraries, the second theme was cultural image of the library versus reality, and the third theme was the challenges that libraries face today. Each theme was important in its own right and helped to make the case to support libraries for as long as humans continue to exist. 

The first theme of the importance of the library looks not only at its historical importance, but also its role in society as an equalizer. The documentary's section on Andrew Carnegie and his support of libraries helped to inspire the modern use of the library. Where as in the past a library was a place to store information and be used by the elite to help them in the research, those same enriching opportunities have now been passed on to the less fortunate. People, rich and poor, old and young, educated and illiterate, free or imprisoned, have benefited from the equalizing nature of free access to information. The use of the library has empowered many to educate themselves, to be innovative, to create wonderful works of art and literature, and to inspire others. Librarians are not only conduits for information, but are organizers and purveyors of information. Librarians are teachers and community organizers. Librarians and their libraries are symbols of a society and status, and they are a great benefit to the general good.

The importance of the library is proven time and again during the documentary, and even Hollywood even agrees to the importance of the library. Many characters find their power and their identity at the library or in the books that they get from the library. However, Hollywood has not been as kind to the librarians that are running the library. Hollywood often portrays librarians as shrewd, uptight, lonely, and introverted. When not being portrayed as such, they can be cast in a more demeaning manner as sex objects. Rarely are librarians cast as exciting or even common folk though. While it may be true that librarians are extraordinary people, it is not true that they are the detached and withdrawn shooshing disciplinarians that they are depicted in the media. Librarians are highly personable and have to have great interpersonal skills to be able to provide the multitude of services that libraries provide to help their communities. Instead of quieting their patrons, librarians are ever finding disruptive ways to give people the opportunity to advance their knowledge of the world. Libraries offer job training, music lessons, robot programming, gaming, and more to their communities. This documentary serves to portray a more correct and positive view of what it is to be a librarian. 

The last theme of the movie is that while libraries are incredibly important, that while librarians are much more amazing then the media portrays them, that America's libraries are in danger of being defunded out of existence. Libraries in the late 1800's and early 1900's were funded by great philanthropic gifts by people like Andrew Carnegie, and later the government took responsibility for supporting libraries. Currently though, neither the philanthropist nor the government, are doing enough to keep these wonderful institutions alive. While libraries are not yet in a downfall, they may soon be if the attitude is that the government needs to spend more on prisons or wars, than it does on betterment of its society through public libraries. The movie does a good job of making one feel as though the current state of library funding is a great disservice to the American society, and that funding needs to be increased to keep the institutions that are the keepers of the flame ours and past civilizations. 

After being in LIS 6010 there was not much that was surprising to me in the movie, but it would have been much more of an eye opener before I started this class. While in my own assumptions and assertions post at the beginning I focused on the importance of libraries, I did not really outline the difference in how the media portrayed libraries versus how they are in reality. I also never really touched on our even thought about the difficulties that libraries face. Which is odd as libraries face many of the same issues with funding as the public schools that I used to work in. I guess I just took it for granted that libraries would always be around. While I now fear that public schools could be replaced by charter and private schools, the same could be said of public libraries. I would also have to say that I now feel as though public schools and public libraries hold equal footing in my mind as being the most important institutions in a society. For each serves the general good of giving all the opportunity to reach their greatest potential. That goal of empowering others to be the best that they can be is why I wanted to be a teacher, and why now I am also drawn to the LIS profession as well.