Remote Access - a great film on libraries in Third World + Gates Foundation film
REMOTE ACCESS: Distant Libraries of the World.
24 mins. 2005 During the last 29 years I have tried to watch every film made by anyone promoting the use of libraries. I have screened them at our state library conferences, and even helped make the single most interesting film I have ever seen about libraries, Julian Samuel’s “Save and Burn.” (He has made two films on libraries – “Burn” and an earlier one, “The Library in Crisis,” both available from Filmakers Library.) The San Francisco Public Library has asked me to find “Toute la mémoire du monde” (All the Memory of the world,1956),” an amazing film about the Bibliotheque Nationale made by Alain Renais and I once hoped to screen a series of films at The New York Public Library Donnell Library made by librarian filmmakers. (Plans fell through a year or so ago…..I am not sure why…..)
The Library of Congress produced “Memory & Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress” (1990) a very good film several years ago hosted by Richard Saul Wurman (who wrote my favorite book on libraries and information, “Information Anxiety”).
The West Virginia Library Commission produced a very interesting film in the 1950s called “Books, Books, Lots of Books” which showed store-front library collections. (I work for WVLC, serving as director of Film Services from 1978-99. In 1976 WVLC created the last major new 16 mm film collection in the world.) Latter State Librarian Fred Glazer, perhaps the most influential state librarian in American history, made a film about libraries and WVLC called “West Virginia Library Commission” (1976) which was well made and worth showing still.
Presently WV’s leading activist librarian, Allen Johnson, director of the Pocahontas County Free Libraries, and his colleague B.J. Gudmundsson, who have made two award-winning feature films together already, are working on a TV spot to promote financial support for his library system in the highest county east of the Mississippi. Thanks to the videolib listserv I learned about this new Canadian film, “Remote Access,” that shows the importance of providing library services to people living in truly remote parts of Latin America and Africa. Three independent shorts show libraries on the banks of the Amazon River, in the outback of Chile, and in various parts of Kenya, far from roads. The segments should be expanded to feature-length stories given their amazing stories showing libraries that are truly important to the poor and illiterate people they serve. The visual images are stunning, and the editing is almost too tight. Absolutely all library students in library schools around the world, all library boards, all library staff, and all library patrons should have a chance to watch in amazement at the sheer joy of learning shown on camera.
I also greatly enjoyed the summary segment at the end. Various Canadian library supporters discuss how totally important these libraries are in our Information Age. Of course, some of the staff who administers these remote libraries also presents the financial, educational, and even spiritual value these tiny institutions play in the local isolated communities.
The scenes of donkeys and camels carrying books and materials in Africa were poignant as any animal scenes I have ever viewed, revealing how mankind should work with all possible resources to bring the excitement of books to everyone. They donkeys and camels seemed to be properly cared for, one scene even showing the fresh water given the two donkeys that pull the ultimate bookmobile. I recalled the opening scene in “Amazing Grace” about William Wilberforce, the leader of the movement in England to end slavery, showing how he stopped to prevent some men from tormenting their poor horse that had fallen. Hopefully hundreds of libraries will purchase copies of this film, allowing the producers to continue traveling the world, showing remote libraries all over the world. There must be libraries in Antarctica, the North Pole, maybe even on the International Space Station. One other note. As a member of the group Freadom, trying to liberate the imprisoned librarians in Cuba, I have to note that none of the people shown in this film living outside of Canada probably had MLS degrees. The American Library Association has refused to fight for the freedom of the independent librarians in Cuba because they lack the proper credentials. Even Dr. Nancy Dunn, a Ph.D. in some field, who paid to build the library on the banks of the Amazon River, has her MLS. Certainly none of the other people interviewed do, and in some places, the libraries are housed in private homes just as they are in Cuba. If Dr. Mitch Freedman and the International Relations Committee of ALA ever saw this film, they may be forced to re-think their moral paralysis on Cuba. Websites – http://www.remoteaccess.ca/
Kenya National Library Servicehttp://www.knls.or.ke/ My extended review of “Save and Burn”http://www.counterpunch.org/fesenmaier10022004.html Librarians for Freedom –http://www.4freadom.org/ Friends of Cuban Libraries
http://www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org/
____________________________________________________________
Your Public Library - Keeping Your Community Connected Produced in 2006. 8 minutes. The Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars on giving computers, programs, and other items to
America’s public libraries during the last decade.
West Virginia has been one of their model states, benefiting greatly from its programs at the beginning. They have now created a short film to help public library boards and directors show their communities why they are important community-based organizations.Moving very quickly, librarystaff and patrons are interviewed, jumping from Sutter, California, an agricultural community, to Chicago talking with Mayor Daly, to Georgetown County, South Carolina, and finally to Memphis, Tennessee.Of course the emphasis is on the lack of home computers in rural and urban parts of the country. African-Americans as patrons are interviewed even more than whites, for once showing sensitivity to race in our country. I particularly enjoyed the story about the “Gaming Club” in
South Carolina, showing a program that attempts to get a group of young black males to learn about a public library. Since my own father bragged once to me that he had “never been in a public library” - except to use a Chilton automobile book - I know how difficult life can be learning to read at home.
Several speakers, both black and white, comment that education is necessary to “compete on a global scale.” I fully support this idea - that human capital is our greatest form of capital in the Information Age. Other interviewees also state things like “libraries help make good community residents,” “consumers need to know.” and “democracy is based on knowledge.” Mayor Daly calls public libraries “community anchors.”
As recently reported in both national and state press, a WV school board leader referred to his local public libraryas “nothing but a glorified homeless shelter.” Of course, statistics totally prove this is NOT true - West Virginia’s largest library system is in its largest county with a population of 181,356 circulated over a million items, answered more than 90,000 reference questions, presented more than 3,500 programs to more than 70,000 people. Almost half a million people walked into the “glorified homeless shelter” in downtown
Charleston which answered almost 59,000 reference questions and circulated 438,000 items.
Hopefully this school board person will have a chance to see this wonderful, fast-paced film about the importance of publiclibraries, and reverse his negative attitude toward the local “people’s university.”
