La Doctora: An American Doctor in the Amazon - by Linnea Smith, M.D.

After a vacation to the Explorarama Lodge in Iquitos, Peru in 1990 Dr. Linnea Smith gave up her medical practice in Wisconsin to provide care for the people who lived in the Peruvian Amazon. Over an eight-year period her practice in Peru grew from a single exam room in the Lodge with some basic medicines to a multi-room hospital equipped for surgery. She also trained a local community member, Juvencio, to be her assistant. When she noticed the slowness with which Juvencio wrote up patient notes she was reminded that Juvencio's

formal education had extended only through the six grades of primary school, in the one-room, libraryless school down by the river. Since that time, ten years earlier, he written virtually nothing except, in rare intervals when he was employed, his signature on paychecks.

Nevertheless, Juvencio became quite skilled at practicing medicine

capable of examining a patient and reaching a diagnosis...prescribing and administering an appropriate medicine whether oral, intramuscular, or even intravenous, and explaining the necessary follow-up for 80-90 percent of ...cases...

Well, so much for the importance of libraries (or medical degrees, for that matter)!

Smith did bring with her to the Amazon what she called "a reference library in miniature" which consisted of a PDR (Physician's Desk Referenence)...;a small general medical reference; and a tiny looseleaf notebook in which [she] had accumulated ten years' worth of "pearls"...

This was a good read, with just enough of therapeutic drama to keep it interesting without being distressing.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman - the television show, Season one episodes 1-9

Back in the mid 1970s, two soap opera spoofs aired that pushed the limits of parody. Soap was a weekly, prime time show that my whole family enjoyed watching. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman really went a step further, a daily show that aired during a regular daytime drama slot. The show, however, was far from regular. The usual melodrama found on a soap was compounded and all sets, characters, and scripts were exaggerated. The title character, played by Louise Lasser, represented a suburban housewife in a blue collar family who, in addition to facing the usual stresses of marriage and raising a pre-teen daughter, also confronts the challenges of a mass murderer in the neighborhood, an exhibitionist grandfather, and a host of other problems.

The show is really quite sophisticated in its humor, and without a laugh track the audience is left on its own to figure out what is funny. Exaggerations and stereotypes comprise much of the farce. Re-watching the show now, four decades since it first aired, I commented to my husband that the sets look less like they were created in the '70s and more like they were created in the '90s to look like the '70s. That's quite a trick! Librarian stereotypes are, of course, some of my favorite things to write about, and this show managed to represent two different librarian clichés over two episodes. Episode five ends with our heroine receiving a phone call from a short, bespectacled, older, bun-headed, shusher-type (Iris Korn) informing her that the books she wanted had come in. She goes on to read the titles out loud, all of which fall along the lines of  'Your Orgasm and You', and other sexual self-help titles. The start of the following episode finds Mary arriving at the library to find a rather effeminate male librarian (Ken Olfson) behind the desk. She asks to speak to the "lady librarian" but is informed that she has left. While Mary pretends that the stack of martial aids that were set aside are not really for her, the librarian pretends that he simply cannot check them out to her since they were set aside for someone else. Ultimately Mary manages to wrest the books away from the library and bring them home, where they almost become another character in the story. Mary's husband Tom (Greg Mullavey) is embarrassed when a friend from work notices the books in the kitchen. Tom confronts Mary about them, and is incensed when she doesn't immediately return them from whence they came.

There is practically enough material here to write an entire Master's Degree thesis.

There are two more discs of episodes coming to my mailbox from Netflix. If there is any more drama about libraries or library books you will find out here.

Stay tuned...

Perfect Little World - by Kevin Wilson

Nine couples, all of whom are expecting their first child, as well as a single expectant mother, Izzy, are chosen by Dr. Preston Grind to be the guinea pigs for the Infinite Family Project. All ten infants are to be raised collectively in a communal living situation, with all 19 parents having equal responsibility for all of the children.

The people who comprise the Infinite Family Project are well aware that they live in a bubble. Bubbles, of course, are formed by tension, and those who live and work in the Infinite Family Project are no strangers to tension. The seemingly infinite number of interpersonal relationships are enough to begin with, add to that tensions around parenting issues when 19 parents are involved, and the inevitable sexual tensions, it is a wonder that the bubble doesn't pop sooner than it does.

Of course one cannot have a "perfect little world" without a library, and the Infinite Family Project does meet this specification. And, in fact, the Chattanooga Public Library plays a role in putting the Family together in the first place. It is where Dr. Grind's assistants meet and interview the Project's potential participants. There are childhood library memories woven into the story as well.

One of the benefits to joining the Infinite Family Project is that all participants receive full funding for educational tuition or job training. One member of the Family, Nikisha, opts to use this perk by getting a Master of Library Science degree from Middle Tennessee State University. Ultimately, she becomes the library director at Rhodes College.

Like the characters in Wilson's The Family Fang the members of the Infinite Family realize that they live in a surreal world, and are not quite sure how to contextualize it. Nevertheless, they manage to make the best of the situation, even when things turn out to be less than perfect.

March (Books 1,2, &3) - by Lewis, Aydin, and Powell

Representative John Lewis won the National Book Award for Book Three in this series. I recommend reading all of them. This graphic novel series follows Lewis through his childhood on an Alabama farm and his struggle to become educated (even by defying his own family) to his civil rights work during the 1950s & 60s with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to the historic march with Martin Luther King, Jr., and hundreds of other protesters, from Montgomery, Alabama to Selma, Alabama in March of 1965. Later that year President Johnson would sign the Voting Rights Act ensuring access to the vote for African Americans from whom it had been denied.

Books 1 & 3 of the series make specific mention of libraries. Book One gives us the story of Lewis' childhood. He tells how he "loved going the library. It was the first time I ever saw Black magazines like Jet, Ebony, The Baltimore Afro-American, or the Chicago Defender". He gives shout out to librarian Careen Harvey who told her young charges "My Dear Children, Read. Read Everything."

Book 3 tells us that when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed that, among other things, "it ended segregation in public schools, libraries, and parks".

The poignancy of these two points in the story is magnified when one listens to Lewis' acceptance of the National Book Award.

I'll Take You There - by Wally Lamb

Film professor Felix runs a club that screens classic movies in an old vaudeville theater. It is there that he meets the ghost of movie director Lois Weber. Weber informs Felix that he is being given a special opportunity to watch movies featuring his younger self, and that he would also be able to enter and be part of the films. Episodes focus on the summer before he (Felix) begins first grade when he and his older sisters are excited about helping their former babysitter win the Miss Rheingold title; and the year his twelve-year old self watched as his sister Frances (aka Fran) developed anorexia and a family secret was revealed.

There wasn't much about libraries in this one, but it doesn't take much to make the cut on my blog. I was optimistic at first that there would be some good library stuff when I read that Felix's daughter's boyfriend, Jason, was a New York University Special Collections librarian, but he barely makes any appearance in the work beyond the first mention early in the story. The Miss Rheingold contest is brought up in several contexts in the book, and one is that of a lonely newlywed bride,Verna, ripping an entry form from a magazine she reads at the New London public library (she "looked over at the desk to make sure the librarian was busy" first).Verna also found solace at the library during her long solitary days as the wife of a Merchant Marine. And on a final note about libraries, Felix's daughter, Aliza, writes an open blog post to her mother, Kat, and in something I will dub Gen Y-splaining, reminds her mother that young women in the 1950s had few career options. These included "mother, teacher, nurse, secretary, librarian, fashion model". Furthermore she says Aunt Fran (who eventually became a denist) didn't want to be any of those things. She probably just didn't realize how fun being a librarian could be. I imagine she saw the job as just stamping out books.

Hidden Figures - the movie

I don't often go to the theater to see a movie. I prefer to wait until they are available streaming or on DVD so I can watch them in my living room and enjoy reasonably priced snacks from my own kitchen and bathroom breaks whenever they are needed. Yesterday I made a rare exception and went to see Hidden Figures at the local cinema. This film based on the true story of African-American women who worked for NASA during the 1960s lives up to all the hype and was well worth the price of admission. I can also only assume that the racism and sexism we see in the film has a Hollywood sugar-coating and that it was much worse than what is portrayed in the film. 

One thing we don't see is any of the trailers for the film is a pivotal library scene. Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer) is thrown out of the public library for daring to look for a book in the "white" section when she realizes what she needs is not available in the "colored" area. Once she is back on the bus with her two sons she pulls out a library book on Fortran from under her coat. When one of her sons asks if she "took" it Vaughn explains that she pays taxes like everyone else, and that you can't "take" what you already paid for. She uses the book to secretly learn to program the new room-sized IBM mainframe computer that has recently arrived at NASA that will surely put her and many of her denizens out of a job. By learning the computer language she not only changes her own destiny, but that of dozens of other women, both black and white, who work for the space program. This episode is one of many in the film that reminds us that what is legal is not necessarily right, and what is illegal is not necessarily wrong. Powerful lessons that are still relevant today.

Update July 26, 2024:

Today I discovered that this post is cited in The Reel Librarians blog!

The Girls - by Emma Cline

Emma Cline's debut novel follows the story of fourteen-year old Evie Boyd during the summer of 1969. She is adjusting to her parents' divorce, and getting ready to go away to boarding school in the fall. Eschewing her best friend Connie and suburban life, she is drawn to a group of seemingly carefree girls she sees in a park and eventually follows them to the ranch where they live with their cult-leader, Russell. The ranch is a thrilling and dangerous place that draws Evie in by degrees. The summer culminates in a Helter Skelter-esque massacre. The story bounces between the events of the summer, and reflections of Evie as an adult.

This one almost didn't make the cut for this blog. The lone mention of a library comes on page 297 (of 355). It is, however, exactly the kind of thing that makes me reflect on how we see libraries. Evie accepts a ride from a college student while hitchhiking back to the ranch. She invites him to stay and look around. The not-yet-a-high-school girl showing the naive college boy the ropes makes for an awkward juxtaposition. Evie is aware of the power she has in the situation and susses it out

Tom was clearly uncomfortable. I was sure he was used to college girls with part-time jobs and library cards and split ends. Helen and Donna and Suzanne were raw, a sour note coming off them...I didn't want to notice the hesitation in Tom, the shade of cower whenever Donna addressed him directly.

Evie's simplification that decent people have library cards and dangerous people don't on one level fits in with the stereotype of libraries as "good" places - a place we should support. However, it is also true that there are those who see the libraries as dangerous as well. Providing the masses with books and ideas can only lead to trouble.