Celluloid heroes

Hollywood makes heroes of us all - and Hollywood Librarian  makes our profession truly heroic.

The idea sounds good to me - let's mix clips of celluloid librarians and interviews with real-life professionals and see what we get - but it could have turned out badly: played for laughs, or grumpy about unfair stereotyping, or a real downer about funding cuts and an uncaring State.

But - not a bit of it. It's a powerful, upbeat, passionate evocation of the deeply important purpose which our profession serves in society. Some of the interviews are truly inspiring - and there's a real cliff-hanger ending for those of you who aren't clued up on recent events in America's public libraries. The movie clips are brilliant - some great lines, and Bunny Watson in Desk Set is still my libraryland heroine! Look out for the surprise connection (at least it was a surprise to me) between Katharine Hepburn and real-life librarianship.

Mind you, there is one sad example of celluloid stereotyping in the movie clips. When books are burnt - by the helmeted goons in Fahrenheit 451 who think that society will be a better place if we all think alike, or by the imperial Roman commander in (I think) Caesar and Cleopatra who lets the library at Alexandria go up in flames in the interests of national security - the bad guys all have British accents. Ah, the days of classic Hollywood - when it was the Brits not the Yanks who personified imperialist aggression...

Of course, there's stuff missing. The New York Public Library has a starring role in Ghostbusters and The Day after Tomorrow but neither clip makes it into the movie - and we hardly get a glimpse of The Librarian, star of those great straight-to-DVD-and-Sky-TV films about ancient scrolls and flying spears. The movie's author, Ann Seidl, must have had an horrendous job deciding what to leave out, both from the movie clips and from the interviews. She interviewed 40 librarians for the film but 21 of them had to be left on the cutting room floor. There are plans to produce a DVD for sale which will include some of the out-take material and the story of how the movie came to be made, as well as the movie itself.

In the meantime, I'm working with CILIP colleagues to bring Hollywood Librarian to a screen near you in the coming months. Show it to celebrate the National Year of Reading - or show it with Desk Set as a brilliant double bill for your Branch or Group Members' Day. It'll cheer you, inspire you, and leave you Dewey-eyed with pride in our profession. Because we're worth it.