At Saturday’s “Do Libraries Innovate?” debate (which morphed into “Can ALA be Saved?”, though that was fun too), I got up my nerve to share part of my assessment about The Hollywood Librarian, a movie about librarians long, long in the making. Well-framed blog posts are popping up all over, but LJ’s article summarizes the key issues: Nice Idea, Jumbled Execution, Dubious Marketing Plan.
LJ quotes my additional concerns that the movie focuses on the image of librarian-as-victim… such as a director who matter-of-factly notes she has no pension! The movie lingered far too long on the problems at Salinas without taking the viewer anywhere useful.
And where, oh where is the technology? Or the beautiful buildings (um, I’ll pass on the Seattle library as an example — it looks like something my icemaker produces when it jams — but point taken)? The savvy techno-librarians? Plus much as we all care about privacy and free speech, the Patriot Act references felt dated.
The really good parts — such as Jamie Larue explaining why he became a librarian, a moment with Ray Bradbury, a great scene with a gruff, lovable librarian who happened to be Katherine Hepburn’s sister, and the inevitable clips of librarians in movies — get lost in the movie’s excruciatingly over-long narrative muddle. We needed Desk Set Part Deux, and we got WaterWorld.
Then there’s the marketing plan, where libraries are supposed to show this movie for money, some of which goes to Seidl’s organization and some of it to libraries. A number of blogs have already commented on the difficulties inherent with this plan, but the key problem is that I don’t want the public seeing this movie. We don’t need more messages that librarians are doe-eyed female martyrs willing to set aside their need for real pay and a decent pension in order to keep libraries open, and it would also be nice to get across the message that for a number of reasons, libraries can be fun and useful for middle-class home-owners, who are the financial backbone for many libraries in the first place.
So here’s my plan.
First, shelve the marketing plan. This movie is not ready for prime time.
Establish a board to help guide the footage from rough cut to reality. We do not have many librarian filmmakers, but we have a lot of librarians who know a good plot when they see one. This should be an editorial board, and yes, I would serve on it.
Help the movie find proper venues. Others have commented that a tight, focused one-hour documentary would be perfect for PBS. I like that idea, but it’s not the only one by far. Librarians from the world of video reviewing could be recruited to help with the “market focus” issues, or some benefactor could buy consulting time with whoever helps indy documentaries get born.
That’s it. For all my reservations about the movie as it now stands, there’s a lot of good footage to work with. I had a writing instructor, Michelle Richmond, who once comforted me after a tough workshop by saying that one of the great things about writing is that if you have good material, you can take the cake apart, reassemble it, and put it back in the oven again. Seidl has vision, drive, and stick-to-it-ivness; I’m hoping she has the energy to put on her apron and get to work to remix her ingredients into the movie we all need.
Posted on this day, other years:
Does anyone expect to get a pension these days? In the tech world, they’ve gone the way of keypunch machines and tape drives. The eventual viewership will be financing their own retirement, maybe with a 401(k) or an IRA…and it makes me wonder what other disconnects might be lurking in that film. Please tell me there’s a word or two about improving resource findability over what today’s OPACs have to offer, or some nod to the end user.
Kristy, does anyone in a government job NOT expect to get a pension? What may be true in the commercial world is not true in public service. In fact as I think about it that disparity is shocking. I’m sure the city manager of that town isn’t saving pennies in a teapot toward his or her retirement.
Kristy, aside from a couple of glimpses of people using computers (the monitors were old, pre-flat-screen), there was nothing in that vein.
[…] K.G. Schneider at Free Range Librarian suggests re-mixing the film in her post “The Hollywood Librarian: Constructive Suggestions” […]
I have never ever thought I would get a pension. This is why I save almost half of my take home pay.
I didn’t see the movie, but your criticisms sound valid- it sounds like exactly the kinds of stereotypes I have to work against every time I tell people I’m in library school. We don’t need reinforcement.
If by “pension” one simply means “retirement benefit,” then yes, in my experience, librarians who are government employees have that. If by pension one means “defined-benefit retirement plan,” then no, in my experience, those are not especially common these days in government-funded libraries. I’ve more seen the model of employer match of contributions to a tax-protected investment plan.
My experience, of course, could be not representative of the field as a whole.
Defined-benefit pension plans don’t make a lot of sense to me, in the economic environment I find myself in. The benefits aren’t terribly portable, and vesting policies don’t generally favor mobile (by choice or by necessity) employees. Also, with librarian salaries so low and housing and medical costs so high, I can’t figure out how I could survive the 7-8% salary set-aside to fund the benefit and still support my family.
When I think pension, I think a set “allowance” after retiring. I do expect (or at least hope) an employer will contribute to a 401k or 403b plan – I got that even when I worked a $6.50 an hour job in retail, so I would hope most library workers (not just librarians, but all full time employees) get that as well.
Sorry to get off topic. đŸ™‚
[…] would recommend reading posts written by Karen Schneider, Andrea Mercado, and Rochelle Harman on the premier and the proposed marketing plan. I did enjoy […]
Can’t wait to see the movie . . . but only so I can give a good review/commentary like you have done.
I don’t get a pension, but I do pay into Public Employees Retirement Service, which is better than SS. I also have pre-tax investments.
I also work in a beautiful, state-of-the-art building in an inner city neighborhood that regularly has gang killings and fights (outside the library, not within, thankfully).