Year End Scramble

It's the end of the year and I'm trying to make sure I spend all my budget. I don't want to get in a rush and spend frivolously, that's not very professional, but it's always easy to get caught up in a 'use it or lose it' mentality whenever you are a professional bureaucrat. This is just my first complete budget year in this position so I'm still getting used to how it's done here. One thing that is just nuts is the Arkansas Sales Tax. The Library has to pay sales tax. That means money the people of Rogers voted on for Library materials is being diverted elsewhere. Very strange. Anyway, I had a few hundred bucks left over so this is what I did with it.

Hud, Ox-bow Incident, and Treasure of Sierra Madre. These are three classics that for various reasons have been cancelled or were out of print. I found them and ordered them and hopefully they will actually get here.

Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection, I'm trying this one again. This set includes Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup. I've tried to get this one before and it was cancelled.

Mae West: the Glamour Collection. What can I say? It's hard not to watch her films and not be impressed by how she steals every scene. (Although now I'll have two copies of My Little Chickadee.)

The Forgotten Films of Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle. Fatty Arbuckle was a major silent movie star who was made even more famous by a scandalous murder trial and I wonder whether he would be as famous as he is today without the scandal. Still, I had to get this collection. He was one of the Keystone Cops and I'm hoping some of the Keystone Cops movies will be included in this collection.

Fighting Seabees, In Harm's Way, and Kelly's Heroes. This is a part of a War Movie Collection I've been working on. I've sort of been dribbling them in rather than doing one big buy. At some point I'm goint to have to sit down and see what I've done so far. There's an amazing number of "We don't have that!" on the list.

Robin Williams Live on Broadway, Sinbad Afros and Bellbottoms, and Jeff Foxworthy Totally Committed. Comedy. The music videos seemed to have gone out well so I'm trying stand-up Comedy. I bought a few last year and they go out very well so I'm getting some more.

Give Me Disney or GIve Me Death!

I cannot tell you how much I hate the studios. I'm trying to build a classic collection of DVD's and I can't get the Sean Connery James Bond movies. Dr. No, Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, and Diamonds Are Forever are not in print. Some of the more important Marx Brothers movies are't either. I can't get Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business or Horse Feathers. I just now found the classic 2-D double feature length Popeyes, which weren't available last year. I've been working with the Children's department to make sure we had Classic Saturday Morning TV. I know it's something that dates me but when we were kids we couldn't wait for Saturday Morning Cartoons. I remember I always liked the older Popeyes more than the new ones and there is a cleaned up and restored version that just came out.

I know it has something to do with the twisted minds of studio marketing executives. Maybe they're hiding the good stuff so we won't notice the pabulum they feed us. (I just had to defend Basic Instinct for G**'s sake!) Why can't I get Disney Cartoons? Imagine trying to build a collection of animation and not being able to get Mickey Mouse! Mickey Mouse the King of Cartoons! And I can't get him! Nor is the Original cast of Saturday Night Live available. It's nuts. There are several classic movies I can't get. It can't be there's no demand for Classic John Wayne so it must the games studios play. Grrrrrrr.

My Philosophy

We have a censorship challenge at the Library because of the movie Basic Instinct. When I read the justification for challenging Basic Instinct I was struck by how the Customer wants the Library to comply with guidelines similar to the Hays Code. (Its fairly interesting reading if anyone wants to Google the Hays Code.) The Hays Code was the self policing guidelines for motion pictures that was in effect from 1930 until it began to fall apart in the 1960's. In 1968 the MPAA ratings (G,PG,R,X) replaced it because so many movies were beginning to 'push the envelope'. (The MPAA has modified the ratings several times since 1968)

I love old movies. I'm especially fond of Film Noir. The Maltese Falcon is my favorite movie, but the Godfather, for example, could never have been made under the Hays Code. Criminals could never be glorified or their criminal enterprises allowed to succeed under the Hays Code. While it would be easy to only buy movies made before 1968 to avoid censorship challenges I wouldn't be doing a very good job if I did that. And I would be missing out on some fantastic movies.

Most people misunderstand the role of the Librarian. We are not supposed to be arbiters of taste. We are certainly not censors. I don't think anyone wants a government bureaucrat in that role (a Public Librarian is definitely a bureaucrat). We are discriminating in what we buy or add to the collection but that is a matter of space and cost. We don't have the money to buy and store everything so we try to get the most bang for the taxpayer's buck.

So what am I trying to do?

I'm trying to collect a representative sample of the art of Motion Pictures.

• If someone wanted to do a self guided history of Motion Pictures they would find what they needed in our collection.
• If a motion picture had a significant impact on our culture it would be in our collection.
• But it's not just academic or educational. Hopefully there will be some movie in this library that will excite, intrigue, amuse, or engross any one who comes in to check one out.
• Movies are an integral part of modern culture. Sam Spade, Scarlett, the Little Tramp, the Sheik, and the Godfather, are just a few of the characters that have become part of the fabric of our culture. (I know I'm being redundant but it's important.)

It would be a shame and the misuse of taxpayer money if they weren't in the collection.

Year End

Our budget year and calender year are the same but we always have to cut off purchasing a couple of months early to give items time to wander in. Libraries always have problems with back orders and cancelations. Things we thought were ordered get cancelled things we thought were cancelled show up so my October is actually two orders, the October order and funds that were left over. As usual my DVD order was trying to accomplish three separate things, build the Classic Television collection, fill holes in the non-fiction collection, and buy more Chick Flicks.

From the beginning I have been building the Classic Television collection, but for October/November I was a little more systematic. I went back through and looked at ratings and Emmy's starting with the fifties and got through the early sixties. Some of the TV shows from this period I already had but here's what I just picked up:

Rawhide: The complete first season. (Clint Eastwood)
Have Gun will Travel: The complete first season.
Perry Mason: The first season Vol 1.
Beverly Hillbillies Ultimate Collection Vol1
South Park - The complete first season
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season One
I love Lucy - The complete First Season
Best of Jack Benny Show - Volumes 1&2
Dragnet - 5-Disc Set
Wanted: Dead or Alive (Season One) (Steve McQueen)
Maverick TV Favorites
Star Trek: Next Generation Complete Third Season
Star Trek: Next Generation Complete Fourth Season

Of course Star Trek and South Park are not 50's Early 60's but they were popular demand items. Building the Non-Fiction DVD Collection is going to take a while. Building the travel section alone could take the lion's share of the DVD budget if I let it but I did find some Extreme Sport DVD's worth blogging about, White Knuckle Extreme - Higher Ground, Globe World Cup Skateboarding 2003, and Over the Edge - Boards X. I'll know if any of our teens read this blog if they put holds on these items before they make it out on the shelf.

Most of the October DVD "Chick Flicks" order was from AFI's list of the 100 best "Chick Flicks". I've basically finished Classics, Oscar winners, Westerns, Science Fiction, Comedies, French, and Spanish and I've just finished buying most of the Top Grossing films from 2000 to the present but since most of the Cataloguing and Circulation staff have been giving me a hard time I ordered something for the Gals:

Chick Flicks I just ordered:

The Women
Shop Around the Corner
Barefoot in the Park
Funny Girl
Love Story
The Way We Were
Romancing the Stone
Tequila Sunrise
Steel Magnolias
Ghost
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Footloose
Pretty Woman
Frankie and Johnny
Legends of the Fall
Muriel's Wedding
Bridges of Madison County
Forget Paris
While You Were Sleeping
What Women Want
Hope Floats
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
UpClose and Personal
Mermaids.

Top Grossing back fill:

Bourne Supremacy
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Grudge
Signs
A beautiful mind
Sweet Home Alabama
Planet ot the Apes

Classics that recently became available (or that just I remembered to buy):

Bright Eyes (Shirley Temple does 'Good Ship Lollipop')
Little Colonel (Shirley Temple dances up staircase with Bill Robinson)
Mr. Moto Collection - Vol 1
Tarzan Collection Starring Johnny Weissumuller
Charlie Chan Collection - Vol. 1
Used Cars
My Favorite Brunette

And some Guy Stuff because I had to get the sweet taste out of my mouth after buying all those chick flicks.

Sahara (The Bogart Version)
Destination Tokyo
Run Silent Run Deep
Zulu
Alamo (John Wayne!)
Longest Day
Blue Max