Details: “Hollywood Librarian” film screening in Whitehorse, Yukon

October is dedicated to library and information services in Canada and this year’s Canadian Library Month theme is “Your Library Your World”.

The Yukon Library Association (YLA) in cooperation with the Yukon Film Society (YFS) is hosting the Yukon release of Ann Seidl’s “Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film” on Saturday October 11th at The Fire Hall in downtown Whitehorse.

Written and directed by Ann Seidl based on the true story of America’s Librarians and proudly presented by Overdue Productions, this 95 minute feature length film had its red-carpet premiere at the American Library Association annual conference in Washington, DC on June 22, 2007 to over 4,000 librarians and friends.

Hollywood Librarian is the first movie ever on the subject of the real lives and actual work of U.S. librarians.  Using the “hook” of Hollywood motion picture clips, it introduces the audience to all kinds of librarians: school and children’s librarians, special librarians (medical and corporate), academic librarians, library educators and graduate students, a cataloger, and public librarians.  Beginning with the history of information organization – Hypatia and the Library of Alexandria – it then touches on Andrew Carnegie, Melvil Dewey, and early women library professionals. Moving on into the 21st century, the documentary gives audiences the chance to peer into the world of librarians: the skills and passion it takes, the challenges of book censorship, the themes of censorship, intellectual freedom, children and librarians, pay equity and funding issues, declining library funding and the value of reading.

Where: The Fire Hall (1st and Main, Whitehorse)

Tickets at the door: $6 ($5 YFS members)

Film showing at 7:00 pm,  Saturday October 11th

Reception at 6:00 pm: Your chance to meet Yukon librarians, past and present. Photos of early and current-day Yukon libraries will be on display and librarians and library staff from various Yukon libraries will be on hand to meet you. Refreshments will be served.

For more information, contact me via this website. Thanks!

Roller derby librarian

While I know most of us have at least 2 lives (our “at work” lives and our “outside of work” lives), Yvette Ipsaralexi’s outside of work life is as a roller derby girl!  Pretty cool!  The Globe and Mail has a video-documentary up (dated Sept 15, 2008) at: Dewey by day, derby by night, and it is very interesting to watch. As most of us know, appearances can be deceiving.  Yvette may not look like a roller derby girl when she is at work, but she enjoys the sport of roller derby immensely … and enjoys the hitting of the sport.  Looks like a lot of fun to me, but I will stick with simple roller-skating, not roller derby.

“Hollywood Librarian” is coming to Whitehorse

In celebration of Canadian Library Month, the documentary “Hollywood Librarian” will be screened in Whitehorse by the Yukon Library Association and the Yukon Film Society.

When: Saturday October 11th, 7pm (reception at 6pm)

More details to follow!

Not enough time in a day …

… which explains the inactivity of this blog.

I went to IFLA’s World Library and Information Congress in Quebec City in August, and it was amazing.  The most interesting thing I came away with is that all libraries truly are the same … I should have remembered this, as I had this realization last year too.  But, I guess I needed to be reminded.  It doesn’t matter if we are academic, public, special, legislative or government libraries, the issues and challenges we face are very similar.  Since IFLA I have been letting this thought simmer at the back of my mind.  We divide and consider our libraries in these very specific categories, and for the most part this serves the libraries and our clients well.  But, what are we missing out on?  What can the small government library learn from the large legal library?  What can the large academic library learn from the tiny volunteer-run public library?  I am convinced we can all learn more from each other if we just took the time to talk to each other more.

Thinking about this reminded me of my experiences last November when I participated in the Manitoba Public Libraries Conference.  As I work in a small government library I wasn’t expecting to find that so many of the issues we face in our very different libraries would be so similar … from marketing services to teaching clients how to use our resources to the pace of technological change to budget issues, I discovered that while our libraries may serve different clientele and be managed very differently (boards for public libraries, managers/directors who report to ADM’s for gov’t libraries), at our core we are the same.

And, “the same” means we are all in the business of providing relevant and accurate information to our clients while dealing with all of those same issues.

So, it isn’t like this should be news to me. But somehow I need regular reminders about it.