Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Archives, Libraries and Popular Culture

This is partly a "working post" for a class I'm teaching next week for adult learners. The first session is "Pop Culture in Archives and Special Collections." I want to play a few clips of how archives and special collection libraries (or libraries in general) are portrayed in the movies and television. So I'm using this as my clipboard to paste down a few links.

From "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001). Gandalf reads Isildur's account of the ring of power. (1:04)

From "The Name of the Rose" (1986). Brother William of Baskerville discovers "one of the greatest libraries in all Christendom." (9:40)

From "The Name of the Rose" (1986). The scriptorium. (2:53)

From "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" (2002). Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives, Jacasta Nu, assists Obi Wan Kenobi with his research. (1:06)

Mr. Bean at the Library (1990). Mr. Bean works on a rare manuscript. (9:13)

From "The Music Man" (1962) --Marian the Librarian. (7:43)

From "All The President's Men" (1976). Woodward and Bernstein pay a visit to the Library of Congress. (1:31)

From "Angels and Demons" (2009). Symbologist Robert Langdon tracks a mystery in the Vatican Archives. (0:56)

From "Angels and Demons" (2009). Breaking out of the Vatican Archive. (1:14)

From "Ghostbusters" (1984). Psychic researchers encounter a library ghost. (1:27)

From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2009). A scene from Hogwarts library. (0:53)

From "Desk Set" (1957). Librarians in the reference department of a television network. (1:12)

"The Librarian: Quest for the Spear" (2004). Interviewing for the position of librarian. (2:36)

2 comments:

Toony90 said...

There was a great episode of CSI that featured a librarian a wee while ago. I remember being frustrated with the stereotyping. Good fun nevertheless.

jm said...

I'd add in the original Rollerball, where the Jonathan E character goes to the data archives to consult with the head archivist and Zero, the digital archive, to try to obtain information on corporate decision-making processes. Has one of my favorite digital preservation quotes: "We've lost those computers with all of the 13th century in them. Not much in the century -- just Dante and a few corrupt popes. But it's so distracting and annoying."