Margot Hanson

LIS 694, Fall 05

23 November 2005

The Representation of Librarians, Libraries, and Information Technology in Film

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Desk Set (1957, 20^th Century Fox) and seeing the 1950s Hollywood representation of a corporate library and its inner workings. I have recommended it to many of my friends already, and plan to keep on recommending it in the future. I noticed several interesting aspects of the movie's representation of libraries, librarians, and information technology, many of which are still in circulation today.

In Desk Set, Bunny Watson, played by Katharine Hepburn, leads the reference department of a big fancy TV network. She has incredible short and long term memory skills, reciting lengthy poetry on command and shooting back lists of phone numbers given to her. Seemingly, she knows everything. This stereotype of librarians is still very much in circulation today, and I encounter it quite frequently when I tell people what I'm studying. Bunny is a very capable user of the tools available to her: books, other people, telephone, and messenger service. If she doesn't know something, she knows how to find it.

Bunny is also very intimidating in her knowledge and retention of information. This is another stereotype of librarians that has held on and it still applicable today. Librarians are the gateways to information and the power that information holds. We can be open and inviting, allowing access to the information, or we can be cold and calculating, holding the information to get something in return. Bunny is somewhere in between, mostly looking out for the information seeker and willing to go to great lengths to provide information. However, she's not a pushover in most respects.

She is, however, a pushover in love. Another librarian stereotype shown in this movie is the lonely lovelorn lady. Hepburn's character has been waiting for a proposal from a businessman in the company for seven years, but he seems to want her around to bolster his career by feeding him useful information and do his "homework" for him. Bunny doesn't have a collection of cats, but she does discuss the possibility with one of her librarian colleagues. I've seen an effort in librarianship of late (or maybe I only noticed it recently and it's been going on for a while) to loosen up our image, make ourselves seem more fun-loving and approachable, in order to attract patrons to a place some see as dull and stuffy.

With the introduction of Emerac, the amazing thinking computer, to the reference department, the viewers get to witness a near-epic battle of wits. It is the age-old question of man against machine, with Bunny and her reference team pitting their librarian skills against an amazing machine that stores information and is able to answer natural language queries. Bunny proves to us that human reference librarians will never be outdated by machines by revealing the complex nature of human curiosity. When asked a particular question about a character's car in a film, Emerac spits out a review of the movie instead of the desired information. On the flip side however, Emerac can also be useful to the librarians in fairly straightforward, yet time consuming, questions. A question that took their department three weeks about the forest destruction caused by a particular pest was answered by the machine in a couple of minutes.

So, according to the movie, humans are indispensable in information dissemination, and machines and technology (computers specifically) can be helpful if guided properly by a knowledgeable human. I believe this concluding message is applicable today, especially if we as a profession are trying to reach the masses in their chosen form of information dissemination. We must utilize all the tools available to us, whether they are blogging, podcasting, or wireless access in the library. After careful consideration of the proper uses and possible problems inherent in new technology, we can embrace the future and go forward with our heads held high!