Episode 451: LITSmas 2019, LITS Go To The Movies

You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show. I am Charlie in the studio with-- well, I kind think this is everybody these days-- Ameet, Fred, Wendy, Marlee, Amanda. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme, and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it.

That's right Charlie. Today's show is called "LITS Go to the Movies."

I see what you did there.

It's our Christmas episode. Or as we like to say around here-- CHARLIE BENNETT: Merry LITSmas, Ameet. You too, Charlie. Merry LITSmas, everybody.

LITSmas for everybody. We decided to go to the movies this Christmas because it seems like that's what people like to do on Christmas day.

But we are still a library show, even during the holidays. So today we're going to talk about how libraries, librarians, archives, archivists, and other information professionals or technology are portrayed in movies.

We're joined by past co-producers Amanda Pellerin and Marlee Givens. And if you want to join the conversation, # the hashtag for this show is #LITS451 for Lost in the Stacks, Episode 451.

Feel free to tweet your thoughts, questions, or favorite depiction of libraries and archives in a movie with that hashtag.

And in the spirit of today's seasonal theme, we've got a great lineup of holiday tunes, classic songs, newer songs, classic artists doing modern songs, modern artists remixing classics. CHARLIE BENNETT: Slow down, Ameet. It's all part of our shared holiday popular culture. And we're also mixing in a few quotes from classic movies featuring librarians and archivists.

- Hi. I'm Larry Daley. I'm head of the night program. - I know who you are. You're the security guard. - Yeah, also head of the night program. I'm doing some research, and I was wondering if you could help me out. - Hmm, night guard doing research. Ooh la la.

[HOLLY GOLIGHTLY, "CHRISTMAS TREE ON FIRE"] The Christmas tree is on fire

It brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it, Ameet?

It does. Yeah, that's a sad song.

This is "Christmas Tree on Fire" by Holly Golightly right here on Lost in the Stacks, where today's show is called "LITS Go to the Movies." It's our LITSmas special for 2019. And we're talking about the movies because the movies are a part of many folks' Christmas traditions.

So what in particular about the movies are we going to talk about?

You tell me.

Well, we're talking about us.

Uh-huh. OK.

Libraries, librarians, archivists, archives, they've all been portrayed throughout the years on the silver screen. And we have thoughts about those portrayals.

Are they good thoughts or bad thoughts?

They are all over the place. This is Lost in the Stacks.

Perfect.

There's nothing binary about this show.

Let's start with the first segment about how libraries and archives are portrayed as places. What does Hollywood think we do in these spots? And what do they think those spots are like? Anybody have a favorite? Because I know there's lots of possibilities for what we didn't like. But anybody have a favorite rendition of the library or the archive in a movie? Well, don't everybody--

Ghostbusters. CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, there we go. Ghostbusters, my favorite portrayal is Ghostbusters.

And why?

It has a lot to do with the context of what's going on in the movie. It's a very funny scene when they're-- and I think we've got a clip later on in the show of that scene, but it's also-- I don't know if this is something I like about it, but it's instantly a library. When you see it on the screen, it instantly suggests library-- stacks of books. The librarian ghost that's depicted is such a stereotypical--

Shh.

Exactly, like the frumpy looking outfit, the bun on the head, and shushing people.

Now, can you be frumpy if you have no legs?

Yes. See the movie. She turns significantly unfrumpy when she's disturbed. But yeah.

Is that the actual New York Public Library? Do you know?

The exterior was. I'm not sure, the interior. CHARLIE BENNETT: Because I remember seeing Ghostbusters and that huge reading room with the tall ceilings. That was kind of the first time I saw a research library. I was young enough that my public library, I would just go to the children's section. It was not a cathedral-like library.

OK. Well, the library in The Name of the Rose is essentially-- it's almost Borges's library. It's all of these rooms with multiple tunnels leading out of each room, and you can get lost in them.

It's like a maze-- built like a maze on purpose.

Built like a maze on purpose. And so you can't see it all at once. And so it's even more sort of mystical, because it just keeps going, and going, and going into the darkness until, of course-- spoiler alert-- it burns all the way down. But don't worry. Sean Connery saved nine books from the abbey.

Thank goodness. Merry LITSmas.

Merry LITSmas.

It's a LITSmas miracle.

So what else? We don't-- nobody feel like you have to explain a whole thesis. Just if you remember a library and what it looked like and how it struck you, just jump in.

I don't know that I've ever seen one that I like or that resonates for me as an archive. As an archive.

Yeah, because I'm thinking about All the President's Men, when they go to the Library of Congress reading room. And there's the crane shot where the camera is just floating up into the ceiling. And you see more and more of the reading room tables and the architecture.

And the gallery surrounds the reading room, right?

Yes, yes. CHARLIE BENNETT: Library of Congress. Amanda, is your disappointment specific to archives or libraries, too?

I think that maybe back to Ameet's point, like, it's very black and white, binary, the way that the library or archives are presented. Not as these dynamic places, or even places where people who love people might go. There's lots of rules.

Are books your friend?

Yes. Yeah, books may be your friends, but I feel like the portrayal of the place of library and archives, it's more-- it is so centered on the material experience and keeping it safe or protected, and not as much about being friendly, and welcoming, and providing the access, which is so much of what librarians and archivists do.

It's a shorthand for what we all know. We see that setting. And we see the people in it. And we know it's a library. And we know that, like Amanda was saying, libraries should be more welcoming. But if we try, if we look on a movie screen, and see a library as libraries want to depict themselves, there would have to be so much exposition that this is a friendly place, and exciting things are happening, but it's a library. And that would take, like, 5 minutes of the scene, you know?

Yeah.

And maybe, I wonder, if there's something about movies. They require the dramatic tension. And frequently, the characters have to go to the place of the library in order to get that bit of info they need to move the plot along. And so libraries, as places that are unwelcoming, or hard, or grumpy, or frumpy, or whatever-- CHARLIE BENNETT: That are obstacles. Yeah, they enhance a plot.

Yeah. There's not a lot of scenes set in libraries where it's just the library is where people happen to be that I can think of. Like, even in Major League, possibly the best baseball movie made, aside from Bull Durham, she is a librarian. That's why Tom Berenger is there and threatening to read Moby Dick at her. I don't know that there's ever a, hey, here we are in the library for no reason, just because people are in the library and meet each other.

This is Lost in the Stacks. And we'll be back with more about libraries and archives in the movies after a music set.

And you can file this set under GT4403 .M87.

- You've just given us a great idea. I mean, why are we wasting our time with the Dewey decimal system when your system is so much easier? Much easier! We'll just put the books anywhere. Hear that everybody? Our friend here has given us a great idea! We'll just put the books any damn place we choose! We don't care, right? [HELEN LOVE, "MERRY CHRISTMAS (I DON'T WANNA FIGHT)"] The time is ripe to fight! S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, hey S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, hey

- What are you doing here? - Oh, look, I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a treasure seeker, or a gunfighter, Mr. O'Connell. But I am proud of what I am. - And what is that? - I am a librarian.

That was Rachel Weisz, sort of delivering a call that some of us are just not going to answer. Before that, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love, more Mummy, and then "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight)" by Helen Love. And we started with some Party Girl. Songs by and about love for the holidays and what we do.

And Party Girl and The Mummy, Fred. I won't stop.

All right, I think we're under control now.

OK. All right.

Welcome back to Lost in the Stacks. For Christmas this year, we're going to the movies to find ourselves. And I think one of my favorite examples of where we find ourselves is a recent film that has not had wide release, but it's called The Public, and it was made by Emilio Estevez, celebrating his love for the Los Angeles Public Library. But it's set in Cincinnati.

So the movie, the central conflict of the movie is the homeless population that uses the library as kind of a community center finally sort of rebel against administrative pressures. But it starts with renditions of day to day life.

Yes, there's lots of day to day life of the library. And it's great because the library is not the typical cathedral that you see in movies, but it's a main branch of a city library system. It's got multiple floors. But it wasn't built that long ago. And yeah, a lot of the characters are the homeless population that use the library, as they can, as they do. They come and read, and use the computers, and use the restrooms. And they befriend the librarians.

You narrowed your eyes for that one.

Yeah, yeah. But then he's won over. And he delivers one of the best lines that caused me to burst into tears when I saw the movie--

For real? MARLEE GIVENS: --about the library being the last bastion of free speech. And it was a powerful moment. Some of the things that we've said about libraries on this show, about it's a place where you can go and get what you need, and enjoy your privacy. And you don't have to buy anything. The things that make libraries great, and it's all kind of summed up in this one emotional quote from the movie. Very nice.

Yeah.

And I like that that follows up our clip from The Mummy, where the librarian character has to get quite drunk and aggressive to finally declare, I am a librarian! Instead of being-- and that's out in the desert when someone has already tried to kill them twice, I think.

Yeah. And I think that she's just like, finally, had enough of all this adventure stuff.

Mr. O'Connell.

Right. Yeah. And I guess the point of that scene is that even though she's not an adventurer, she's proud of that academic streak in her.

Not often is the librarian or the archivist a person, a character. They're often a plot point.

Right.

There's a film that came out last year called American Animals. It was based-- loosely based on a true story of four college kids who decide that they want to steal Birds of North America, like an original pressing of the John Audubon. And so I think that it was set at the Transylvania University Library. And there's an archivist who's portrayed in the film and who's attacked during the course of this heist.

I think that's an evergreen tweet, Ameet.

Yeah. But it's a nice portrayal of a classic midcentury library as well.

The stereotype of the librarian makes good and easy comedy in movies, because they want to shush you. So the comedy is you're making noise while being shushed, or they control the books and the information, the access to it, and the comedy or sneaking around, stealing the book that you're not supposed to get, that happens in Harry Potter, I think.

Yeah, I think for archivists, it's even more so-- like, they're seen as gatekeepers of these treasures. I think of National Treasure, where not only is the place of the preservation room. You have to break into that. But the archivist there is kind of portrayed as yet another barrier to getting to that information, or someone you have to check in with to make sure it's OK that you have the rights and access to go and see these archival records. And they're often very severe.

We'll be back with more Lost in the Stacks and LITSmas on the left side of the hour.

- Hi, this is Andy Russell. I'm the co-director of The Maintainers. And this is Lost in the Stacks, the one and only research library rock and roll radio show .

Today's Lost in the Stacks is our LITSmas 2019 episode, "LITS Go to the Movies." We're celebrating Christmas time by talking about librarian and archivist representation in the movies. So let's combine them and hear Spencer Tracy attempting a Christmas reference question in Desk Set.

- Hello. Santa Claus's reindeer? Uh, uh, wait a second. Let me see now. There's Dopey, Sneezy, Grouchy, Happy, Sleepy, Rudolph, and Blitzen. Sure.

File this set under BM695.H3 C44.

- What is the wish? - I'm looking for some local bio-- what did you say? - What is the wish? - A local biography or history. - If you will consult with my colleague in there. - Mhm. - Dost thou have a washroom? Thank thee.

Holiday songs, new and old by classic artists, wow. Ella Fitzgerald with "Sleigh Ride," Bob Dylan with "Must Be Santa," with clips from It's a Wonderful Life, and thou favoritest Philadelphia Story.

- Mr. Thompson, you will be required to leave this room at 4:30 promptly. You will confine yourself, it is our understanding, to the chapters in Mr. Thatcher's manuscript regarding Mr. Kane. - That's all I'm interested in. Thank you. - Pages 83 to 142.

That was the archivist to Krampus, laying down the law in Citizen Kane. This is Lost in the Stacks. And our show today is all about libraries and archives in the movies. How is our purpose in society portrayed in Hollywood films?

I've been thinking about this a lot. Sometimes it's very pleasant, and it's always answers, right? Remembering Desk Set, Katharine Hepburn, she knows how to find stuff out. But then there's also this sort of protective obstacle, "it's very important, but it's not for you" kind of position. And again, it makes me sad to think that that's how some people see these institutions, these organizations.

There's-- it's been a while since I saw it, but the Wonder Woman movie, there seems to be-- I remember there's a daguerreotype or some sort of image format in it that-- with this sort of treated by the camera with great reverence for its preservation. And this sort of idea of our purpose as, like, containing so much power, or being, like, a sort of mundane cover up for power, for memory, or for Wonder Woman's super awesomeness.

That's right. So the photo is the clue that she is Diana, that she's the superhero, not just a person, and doesn't-- I'm going to test myself on this one. Doesn't someone try to steal it from a private residence in order to figure out what it is? Something like that. Anybody?

Yes. I believe it's Bruce Wayne who tries to steal it from a party.

Yeah.

But he-- and we think that he has a nefarious purpose, but he's doing it for her, because he's figured out who she is. And he knows that that will be important for her.

And he needs to-- and he needs to get it out of the potential--

He needs to get it. Yes, exactly.

Right.

He needs to get rid of the evidence. Right, right, because only he can understand what it means.

Or he's afraid someone else will also understand what it means, and he knows that would be dangerous.

A superhero wasn't in the finding aid of that photograph, right?

Right. Another example of someone finding something that was hidden in the archives.

Right. We should explain that very quickly for people who are not in the know. If you find something in the archives as just a regular person, it's there because someone put it there, and they know it's there. No one discovered anything in the archives. You want to throw in on that? I saw you lean forward like you had a thought. AMANDA PELLERIN: Um, yes, I guess. But there is, also, there are so many of these things.

When they do get brought up, it's nice to know that they're there, because an archivist can't know everything that he or she has in their keeping. And so, yeah, I would say that there is a shared experience there, and not to take that away from the researcher, not to take that away from the person who's interacting with the library, the librarian, the archives, the archivist, to let them have their moment to feel like they have made a significant discovery.

So you bring up a great relationship that's sort of posited by movies where the archivist or the librarian has arranged and protected a collection, and then our hero or heroine needs to find a thing, and release it from this collection, release it from the sort of mistaken understanding. For instance, National Treasure, I think all of those movies are based around the idea that there is a thing that's extra about a document that no one knows.

We'll be back with more after a music set.

And you can file this last LITSmas set under PA6804.B7 G5.

- This is hot, Ray. - Symmetrical book stacking, just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947. - You're right. No human being would stack books like this. - Listen! You smell something?

- Only two teams left. Who will make it out with their flag? And who will be eliminated? - In a real scare, you do not want to get caught by a kid's parent. And in this event, you do not want to get caught by the librarian. - Shh! Quiet.

That was a clip from Monsters University. And we heard "My Favorite Things" by Outkast. Before that, a clip from Star Wars, and then "Christmas at the Zoo" by the Flaming Lips. And we started off with a clip from Fred's favorite, Ghostbusters. Those were holiday songs by modern artists with their own unique perspective.

Happy LITSmas, everybody. Today we went to the movies to find ourselves.

We discussed how movies portray libraries, archives, and the people who work in them.

Contrary to what the movie settings depict, libraries and archives are not cold, locked down places. To stay on the nice list, however, remember to let the professionals refile the materials. Leave your eggnog outside the archival reading room. And please keep loud holiday merriment to designated noisy floors. I'm talking to you, Rudolph!

See? We can be fun, I think.

I think that we heard too many examples of librarians and archivists being obstacles. And maybe in the new year or in the new decade, we'll see more examples of us as keepers of magic. WENDY HAGENMAIER: We talked about how our purpose and society is portrayed in movies. And as Marlee lamented, too often as gatekeepers between the heroine and her discovery, keepers of evidence the hero tragically seeks to steal. Don't steal the stuff.

That's not a call to action. That's a call to non-action. Ameet, go get the eggnog, man.

All right. CHARLIE BENNETT: And Fred, can you roll the credits, like something Christmassy, but not too Christmassy?

Let's see what I can do.

Lost in the Stacks. How's that, Charlie? Does that work?

That works for me, man.

OK. It's a little holiday. There's some bells. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, ride the snake.

(SINGING) Snake is long. OK. Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, produced by Charlie Bennett, Ameet Doshi, Wendy Hagenmaier, and Fred Rascoe. And today, also Marlee Givens and Amanda Pellerin.

And Fred Rascoe is you. And hey, Fred, remember, don't drag this out. There's a thing that happens at the end. We've got to be done before that starts.

OK. Sorry.

Fred was our engineer today. And the show is brought to you in part by The Library Collective and their social and professional network, League of Awesome Librarians. You can find out more about them at thelibrarycollective.org.

Legal counsel and a star for the top of the tree were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. CHARLIE BENNETT: Thank you, Phillip.

Special thanks to Amanda and Marlee for joining us, to Hollywood, and Y'allywood, for all the attention. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. FRED RASCOE: (SINGING) The blue bus Sorry! You told me not to do that, Charlie.

No, this is great, man. Go as slow as you can. Something's about to happen.

Find us online at lostinthestacks.org. And you can subscribe to our podcast pretty much anywhere you get your audio fix.

Hey, Wendy, I don't know why I left you so much out of the credits. You want to read this one, the next week?

Next week on Lost in the Stacks, a special presentation of a thing Ameet did in the seventh floor reading room.

And Charlie as well. Time for our last song today. Most everyone has some sort of holiday tradition. And on this show, our tradition is wrapping up the LITSmas show with "Christmas Wrapping." So this song is "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses. Did you get that, wrapping up Christmas wrapping?

Ameet, Ameet, no puns, man. We talked about this. Your Christmas gift to me was going to be no more puns.

No more puns.

Right, Fred?

That's your PUNishment.

Oh! Well done. Have a great weekend, everybody.

Happy LITSmas.

Happy LITSmas!

Happy libraries! FRED RASCOE (as Dorothy Crosland): Ask me who I was. (SINGING) Listen to what I say The child, the child, sleeping