With a title like "The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film", I was expecting a documentary discussing and analyzing representations of librarians and libraries in film. That is NOT what this documentary is about at all.

In fact, this documentary can’t seem to make up its mind what it is about. Consequently, it dabbles a little on one topic, then on another, and so on, but it never actually says much of anything about anything.

There is some discussion about the history of libraries, the different types of librarians & how librarians feel about their work, Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie libraries, the Patriot Act, a prison library program, and a look at a California town’s decision to shut down its library system. Any one of these individual topics would have made a great subject for a documentary; unfortunately, since this documentary can’t find a focus, the viewer doesn’t get any genuine in-depth information about any of them.

I would still love to see a documentary about how librarians are depicted in movies. Maybe someday someone will get around to making one… ( )