[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- Have you a real love of books and learning?
Are they your friends?
Do you like people?
And do people like you?
Do you like all kinds of people?
Because when you have these two important qualifications,
love for books and love for people,
you may well consider the vocation of a librarian.
[END PLAYBACK]
(SINGING) I knew it must have been some big setup
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
AMEET DOSHI: That's right Charlie.
Today's show is called "LITS Go to the Movies."
CHARLIE BENNETT: I see what you did there.
AMEET DOSHI: It's our Christmas episode.
Or as we like to say around here--
CHARLIE BENNETT: Merry LITSmas, Ameet.
AMEET DOSHI: You too, Charlie.
Merry LITSmas, everybody.
FRED RASCOE: 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.
WENDY HAGENMAIER: 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.
FRED RASCOE: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Feel free to tweet your thoughts, questions,
or favorite depiction of libraries and archives
in a movie with that hashtag.
AMEET DOSHI: 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.
AMEET DOSHI: 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.
It's an exciting time of year, so let's start with the exciting
and the dangerous "Christmas Tree on Fire"
by Holly Golightly right here on the Lost in the Stacks.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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.
[END PLAYBACK]
[HOLLY GOLIGHTLY, "CHRISTMAS TREE ON FIRE"] The Christmas
tree is on fire
[FIRE BURNING]
[SIRENS]
CHARLIE BENNETT: It brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it,
Ameet?
AMEET DOSHI: It does.
Yeah, that's a sad song.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
AMEET DOSHI: So what in particular about the movies
are we going to talk about?
CHARLIE BENNETT: You tell me.
AMEET DOSHI: Well, we're talking about us.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Uh-huh.
OK.
AMEET DOSHI: Libraries, librarians, archivists,
archives, they've all been portrayed throughout the years
on the silver screen.
And we have thoughts about those portrayals.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Are they good thoughts or bad thoughts?
AMEET DOSHI: They are all over the place.
This is Lost in the Stacks.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Perfect.
AMEET DOSHI: There's nothing binary about this show.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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?
CHARLIE BENNETT: Well, don't everybody--
FRED RASCOE: Ghostbusters.
CHARLIE BENNETT: OK, there we go.
FRED RASCOE: Ghostbusters, my favorite portrayal
is Ghostbusters.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And why?
FRED RASCOE: 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--
CHARLIE BENNETT: Shh.
FRED RASCOE: Exactly, like the frumpy
looking outfit, the bun on the head, and shushing people.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Now, can you be frumpy if you have no legs?
FRED RASCOE: Yes.
See the movie.
She turns significantly unfrumpy when she's disturbed.
But yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Is that the actual New York Public Library?
Do you know?
FRED RASCOE: 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.
So that was the first time I saw the sort of church rendering
of a library in a movie, which would eventually be completely
overtaken by things like, oh, the library
in The Name of the Rose.
Do y'all remember that?
Anybody?
Am I the only one?
FRED RASCOE: I've read the book.
I've not seen the film, actually.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
FRED RASCOE: It's like a maze-- built like a maze on purpose.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
AMANDA PELLERIN: Thank goodness.
Merry LITSmas.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Merry LITSmas.
AMEET DOSHI: It's a LITSmas miracle.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
AMANDA PELLERIN: I don't know that I've ever
seen one that I like or that resonates for me as an archive.
As an archive.
MARLEE GIVENS: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And the gallery surrounds the reading room,
right?
MARLEE GIVENS: Yes, yes.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Library of Congress.
Amanda, is your disappointment specific
to archives or libraries, too?
AMANDA PELLERIN: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Are books your friend?
AMANDA PELLERIN: 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.
FRED RASCOE: 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?
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah.
WENDY HAGENMAIER: 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.
WENDY HAGENMAIER: Yeah, they enhance a plot.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
And I think that's one of the things that kind of hurts
about the library.
It has to be a special event for characters to be in there.
WENDY HAGENMAIER: This is Lost in the Stacks.
And we'll be back with more about libraries
and archives in the movies after a music set.
FRED RASCOE: And you can file this set under GT4403 .M87.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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
[DARLENE LOVE, "CHRISTMAS (BABY PLEASE COME HOME)"]
- 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.
[END PLAYBACK]
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
And Party Girl and The Mummy, Fred.
I won't stop.
FRED RASCOE: All right, I think we're under control now.
CHARLIE BENNETT: OK.
All right.
MARLEE GIVENS: 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.
And there's just lots of great clips of people at the reference
desk asking those ridiculous reference questions, like,
can I get a life-size globe of the Earth,
or a photograph of George Washington, and so on.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
MARLEE GIVENS: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Are the librarians
portrayed as all good, all bad, administrative?
MARLEE GIVENS: It's a mix.
It's a mix.
Yeah, because there's an administrator character that
is on the side of the city.
The city is trying to come in, and, you know--
CHARLIE BENNETT: You narrowed your eyes for that one.
MARLEE GIVENS: 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--
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Very nice.
MARLEE GIVENS: Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
AMEET DOSHI: Yeah.
And I think that she's just like, finally, had enough
of all this adventure stuff.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Mr. O'Connell.
FRED RASCOE: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Not often is the librarian or the archivist
a person, a character.
They're often a plot point.
FRED RASCOE: Right.
AMEET DOSHI: 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.
And after the movie, they actually
have an interview with the real archivist,
like as a postscript to the film, which is quite powerful,
because it was--
I don't want to give it all away, but it was not--
it was traumatic and violent.
And at the end, she was very forgiving.
And I just found that to be just a very human kind of moment,
transcending the typical stereotypes you get
of information professionals.
It's actually-- I like the film a lot.
Other people did not like the film a lot.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I think that's an evergreen tweet, Ameet.
AMEET DOSHI: Yeah.
But it's a nice portrayal of a classic midcentury library
as well.
FRED RASCOE: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: The librarian seems
to represent order and rules, which, in a comedy,
need to be broken, and which in a drama
need to be recreated or reinforced.
And so there's not a lot of agency to these characters
outside of how they're responding to our adventures.
FRED RASCOE: So it's nice when a movie
will present something that's a little beyond the nuance.
AMANDA PELLERIN: 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.
I think that is a shared commonality between the movie
portrayal of librarians and archivists-- tight buns,
glasses, straight back, very authoritative
in how they're telling the person who's
there to see the materials what they can and can't do.
CHARLIE BENNETT: It wasn't until I
was older that I encountered people who really, honestly,
believed that kind of image of the librarian as an obstacle.
I worked for someone.
I think I mentioned this last show,
but I worked for someone who had the idea of the librarian
as the person who would stop them from getting
what they wanted, right?
And I had always--
I had always had the very romantic idea of, oh,
the librarian, part of the library,
the one who lets me get all this stuff.
And I do think that it's almost like a coin toss whether
a screenwriter has the romantic, sentimental,
"We can find it for you" idea, or the "What are you doing?
Get out of here" idea in their head when they start writing
a script.
But I can't really think of many attempts
at making a librarian who has to figure out which way to go.
WENDY HAGENMAIER: We'll be back with more Lost
in the Stacks and LITSmas on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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 .
[END PLAYBACK]
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
[PHONE RINGING]
- 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.
[END PLAYBACK]
CHARLIE BENNETT: File this set under BM695.H3 C44.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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.
[END PLAYBACK]
AMEET DOSHI: 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.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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.
[FOOTSTEPS]
[END PLAYBACK]
AMANDA PELLERIN: 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?
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
AMANDA PELLERIN: Yeah, almost elitist
when their purpose is very foundationally
public and democratic.
CHARLIE BENNETT: So I think it comes from the idea
that people are taking stuff.
Librarians and archivists are taking things and putting them
away.
And then you are judged whether you can get them,
as opposed to we need to do that.
There's very little discussion of cultural preservation
or archival purpose in movies that I know of.
Can anyone come up with a counter example?
WENDY HAGENMAIER: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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?
MARLEE GIVENS: Yes.
I believe it's Bruce Wayne who tries to steal it from a party.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah.
MARLEE GIVENS: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And he needs to-- and he needs to get it out
of the potential--
MARLEE GIVENS: He needs to get it.
Yes, exactly.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Right.
MARLEE GIVENS: He needs to get rid of the evidence.
Right, right, because only he can understand what it means.
[LAUGHTER]
Or he's afraid someone else will also understand what it means,
and he knows that would be dangerous.
FRED RASCOE: A superhero wasn't in the finding
aid of that photograph, right?
MARLEE GIVENS: Right.
Another example of someone finding something that
was hidden in the archives.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
And the discovery in archives is very serendipitous and magical,
much like the Christmas spirit.
And it's like--
CHARLIE BENNETT: Nicely done.
AMANDA PELLERIN: 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.
I will say, though, that if you find something
and it's fascinating to you, and you are the first one to make
that connection, it's not--
don't take it.
I see that there are so many instances in the films where--
CHARLIE BENNETT: This is good, yes.
AMANDA PELLERIN: Yes.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? is a great example of that, where
she is trying to find a way to support her writing,
and finds that she's very good, because she has done
a lot of research on famous authors
at crafting, plagiarizing letters from them.
And even there's a scene where she goes to an archives.
And the poor archivist does everything correctly
to make sure that things are safeguarded.
But yes, the character is able to sneak a letter out
of the archives underneath the archivist's nose.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
And so you've got--
I've got to take it back to the lab and put it under UV light
to be able to find the map or the clue.
As opposed to a researcher, librarian, researcher,
archivist relationship, where I've found these things.
Can you contextualize them?
Once they're contextualized, I can then
take them back to the collection and create a better web,
a more understandable thing.
Chinatown, he takes the plans of the water
by pretending to cough while he tears it across the ruler,
like something as simple as tearing a sheet out of a book,
and all the way up to actually stealing
a thing from a collection.
AMEET DOSHI: We'll be back with more after a music set.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
FRED RASCOE: And you can file this last LITSmas set
under PA6804.B7 G5.
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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?
[END PLAYBACK]
[THE FLAMING LIPS, "CHRISTMAS AT THE ZOO"]
[AUDIO PLAYBACK]
- 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.
[END PLAYBACK]
WENDY HAGENMAIER: 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.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
CHARLIE BENNETT: Happy LITSmas, everybody.
Today we went to the movies to find ourselves.
AMEET DOSHI: We discussed how movies
portray libraries, archives, and the people who work in them.
AMANDA PELLERIN: 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!
MARLEE GIVENS: See?
We can be fun, I think.
[LAUGHTER]
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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: That's not a call to action.
That's a call to non-action.
Ameet, go get the eggnog, man.
AMEET DOSHI: All right.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And Fred, can you
roll the credits, like something Christmassy,
but not too Christmassy?
FRED RASCOE: Let's see what I can do.
[THE POLYPHONIC SPREE, "DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?"]
Lost in the Stacks.
How's that, Charlie?
Does that work?
CHARLIE BENNETT: That works for me, man.
FRED RASCOE: OK.
It's a little holiday.
There's some bells.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, ride the snake.
[LAUGHTER]
FRED RASCOE: (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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
FRED RASCOE: OK.
Sorry.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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.
FRED RASCOE: 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.
AMEET DOSHI: 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.
CHARLIE BENNETT: No, this is great, man.
Go as slow as you can.
Something's about to happen.
FRED RASCOE: Find us online at lostinthestacks.org.
And you can subscribe to our podcast
pretty much anywhere you get your audio fix.
CHARLIE BENNETT: 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?
WENDY HAGENMAIER: Next week on Lost in the Stacks,
a special presentation of a thing Ameet
did in the seventh floor reading room.
AMEET DOSHI: 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?
CHARLIE BENNETT: Ameet, Ameet, no puns, man.
We talked about this.
Your Christmas gift to me was going to be no more puns.
AMEET DOSHI: No more puns.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Right, Fred?
FRED RASCOE: That's your PUNishment.
AMEET DOSHI: Oh!
Well done.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
AMANDA PELLERIN: Happy LITSmas.
ALL: Happy LITSmas!
AMEET DOSHI: Happy libraries!
FRED RASCOE (as Dorothy Crosland): Ask me who I was.
(SINGING) Listen to what I say
The child, the child, sleeping
[MUSIC PLAYING]