Eve, my deepest condolences.
Godamnit! they have done the same thing in Chicago!I recently stopped in the local Rogers Park branch to see about a particular book. I went to find the fiction section and there were about 9 standard double sided bookcases about half filled with crap. It was pathetic, there was easily 10,000 square feet of air, useless partition walls, and stupid faux Mission wall sconce details but no BOOKS!
grrrrr
Guin—Don’t even get me started on those stock-photo agencies . . . Archive/Hulton-Getty LOST half the images I’d reserved with them, Corbis-Bettmann has buried 90% of their holdings in a salt mine (I am not making that up), and Culver has jacked up their prices ten times. I’m mostly using Everett and Photofest these days . . .
The problem with Lincoln Center is that it wasn’t a “library” as much as a holding for one-of-a-kind newspapers, magazines and correspondence. They have theatrical scrapbooks going back to the mid-19th century, including many donated by the stars themselves, with personal items. Also tens of thousands of newspaper and magazine clippings files—long articles, interviews, press clips, studio releases. Things that just don’t exist elsewhere, even at other major research libraries. That’s why I was always able to find obscure facts and interviews for my books.
The money SHOULD have been spent on saving these things: by digitzing, microfilming; whatever. Instead, it was wasted (lining someone’s pockets, I’ll wager) and these clippings and scrapbooks have been largely moved off-site or have been locked up so you can’t photocopy them (even the ones in perfectly healthy shape).
I am so ‘bewitched, bothered and bemildred’ by all this I’m at a loss. Researching a book there used to be FUN, like a treasure hunt. Now it’s like a treasure hunt with booby traps and three-headed dogs with eyes as large as saucers guarding the door . . .
P.S. On the bright side, my publisher just posted my next book on their web site: http://www.uky.edu/UniversityPress/books/kendall.htm
[mickey rooney voice] Hey gang - let’s put on a SHOW!
Judy can sew the costumes, and we can use my grandpa’s barn! I just KNOW everything will turn out all right by the last reel.[/mickey rooney voice]
Seriously, m’dear, I ache for your loss. I do a bit of research for my job too, and consolidation has robbed me of several of my best sources. It sucks.
Eve, my condolences. I hate the way libraries, in the name of giving greater access, are actually becoming less accessible. The University library recently had its entire on-line catalogue shut down. You never had that with card catalogues.
I’m pissed because the Museum of Fine Arts tossed its entire print library. I used to be able to go down there and flip through the photos (which included a lot of stuff not out on display), but you can’t do that anymore. The Perseus Project is supposed to eventually put a lot of this stuff on-line, but God knows when that will happen, or how complete it will be.
Eve, darlin’, you jus’ set that tinder box down, y’hear? You don’t know what yer liable to do when you get yer dander up like this…
But you know, it’s all I can do just to commiserate. So depressing and frustrating and (it seems) irrevocable.
From what you describe, the NYPL has built a mausoleum without a body. Perhaps a funeral is in order…
I am trying to think of SOME way I can do further books, as that’s all I HAVE. I do have a laptop, but I’d have to schlep it around all day, and the battery wouldn’t last—besides, I can’t afford to have it stolen or broken.
I’m thinking maybe I could find a hidey-hole there and actually read the scrapbooks and clippings into a tape recorder, then transcribe them at home . . . It was so much easier when you could actually photocopy the goddam things. It infuriates me that they are going out of their way to HINDER researchers and writers, rather than trying to ASSIST us. A book that might have taken a year for me to research and a year to write will now take twice that long and be much less enjoyable to do . . .
If you have any links, let me know. I saved them, but it still sucks.
I remember your thread about Bettmann. That seriously pisses me off. If ever proof was needed that Bill Gates is the AntiChrist, that is it.
I love libraries. I LOVE pouring through old books-books older than my parents, or even my grandparents sometimes.
Eve, I think you’re overlooking some of the potential advantages of using your own scanner instead of photocopying. I’ve been giving this some thought.
First off, yes, there are disadvantages. Lugging it about could be solved by getting one of those briefcases with wheels and handles, but there is the risk of theft. This site gives a good set of tips on laptop theft prevention.
Oh, and as for the battery running out… surely there must be a power outlet around somewhere that you can use discreetly. You’ll need one for the scanner anyway.
But please consider what scanning the images in might mean. Instead of transcribing the tapes or photocopies, you could run an OCR program on them, and then they’d be documents on your hard drive. You could search through the documents in your research folder to see which one had a particular name or phrase, without even opening the documents. If you need to quote, cut and paste.
Also, by the nature of the task, you’ll be able to organize your scans as you do them; title your documents by date, for instance, and put them in a separate folder for the publication being scanned.
Lastly, if you do the scans at a good resolution (300x300 is usually sufficient for most things I do; you may need more), you’ll get a better image of the article than a photocopier. You can get print out sharp, detailed, color images.
Seriously, think about this option. If I was doing research regularly right now, this is the setup I’d be using, even with photocopiers around. Pick up a slim scanner, they should be under $200, and practice with it at home; get used to scanning in stuff like you’ll be doing in the library. Then take it in, and set up.
It’s a different set of tools with which to work, and I know that’s always difficult for an artist to integrate into their methodology. But if you give it a chance, I think you’ll find it actually works better than photocopies.
If you have any questions, or need any help with this, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to help.
Eve, perhaps instead of a scanner you could use a digital camera to photograph the documents (spies have been doing it for years). One of the newer high-resolution (3-4 megapixel) cameras may provide suitable images if you take the photographs from a foot or so away. There’d be no need to carry your laptop around with you and the camera should easily fit into a handbag. If you went to a camera shop and explained what you need the camera for you could try a few different models to see which works best for your needs.
The problem is the library director thinks she’s a political advocate and “art” impressario. In the one interview I’ve heard from her, the “Director of Cultural (something)” aka the Head Librarian was talking about how she saw her mission as making the library into a place where multicultural themes could be explored.
Apparently Dildo sculptures near the kid section are more important than books. :rolleyes:
Remember the old days? Librarys were for books, multimedia stuff and periodicals. The end. No coffee shops. No game room (I was in a library in New Mexico about 2 months ago that had one…I don’t know what was in it), No “multi-cultural” displays of penis-art.
It’s all about the books, man.
And Eve, a digital camera is small and can take amazingly detailed pictures. It’s worth a thought!
Fenris
Mr. V. and Emul—Scanner?! Digital camera?! I can barely afford subway fare to Lincoln Center! I have a ten-year-old laptop and am a writer (e.g., “flat broke”). Besides, they wouldn’t let me scan the articles: they have scanners there, but whenever I brought clips or scrapbooks up to the front desk to be photocopied or scanned, I was told, “can’t do it anymore—new policy.” Apparently they put the Taliban in charge of the library.
I am thinking of the tape-recorder plan now. Maybe I could just read everything into the recorder, then transcribe it at home . . . I have to find SOME way of writing more books; I have a perfectly lovely publisher begging me for another proposal, and writing is what I DO. Jesus—I don’t drink or do drugs or have sex anymore, I have to have SOME enjoyment in life . . .
Guin—I highly recommend Photofest and the Everett Collection, at least for show-biz photos. Good selection, and reasonable rates.
Fenris—Remember card catalogs? Sigh . . .
I miss card-catalogs. Computers are more efficent but…somehow it’s not the same.
Plus, when flipping through physical cards, I often found things that I never would have found otherwise in the course of research. Even a very broad search won’t make some of the connections that I was able to get from flipping through the cardfile.
Fenris
[quote]
Eve, my condolences. I hate the way libraries, in the name of giving greater access, are actually becoming less accessible. The University library recently had its entire on-line catalogue shut down. You never had that with card catalogues.
[quote]
All the old cards from the card catalogue have now become scratch-paper for writing down the call numbers. It seems disrespectful.
Oh, yeah, they cleared out the card catalogues at the Boston Public Library, too. Now the suite of rooms they used to occupy is dead and empty, swept clean by technology. The walls are banks of empty bookshelves. Rooms full of empty bookshelves. In a library for cryin’ out loud!
Eve, have you considered branching out from the biography genre? It’s obvious to all of us that with your talent, a book by you on any subject would be worth reading. Perhaps you could do a collection of reviews on forgotten film classics, a general history of the early film era, a diatribe on the lost legacy of missing films and the need for film preservation, or a book debunking the urban legends of Hollywood that lesser writers have perpetrated.
Whatever you decide to write, keep us advised. I was re-reading Golden Images last night and wondering when your next book was due.
Thanks, Nemo-“Golden Images” kinda WAS my “branching out” attempt, and I am trying to convince that publisher to do a vol. II (“Bride of Golden Images?” “Mars Needs Golden Images?” “Faster, Golden Images—Kill! Kill?”).
But I love doing bios—more specifically, bios of people no one else is crazy enough to write about. There will always be people to write books about Mel Gibson or Marilyn Monroe or Elvis. But who except I am nertz enough to write about Anna Held or Theda Bara? If I don’t do it, these people will disappear completely . . .
Since this isn’t the Pit, and I’m feeling brave. I just want to speak up for Library’s. Not all mind you but the ones like mine who are fighting the good fight. We can’t get the majority of our younger patrons to go near books or clippings. When they need to do research they go straight to the internet. Then they end up whining to us because they can’t find what they need.
Can I just say that I have long fantasized about an Eve Golden biography of Thelma Todd?
Yes, Eve, but consider the resources you have available. Writing a biography, as you’ve noted, requires access to obscure source material. Writing a book of movie reviews requires a VCR and a ready wit. Consider the following: Dan Peary’s Cult Movies, David Meyer’s 100 Best Films to Rent You’ve Never Heard of, Lynn Gordon’s 52 Terrific and Forgotten Films, Edward Margulies’ Bad Movies We Love, Scott Smith’s Film 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential People in the History of the Movies, Chris Gore’s 50 Greatest Movies Never Made. You know movies and you’re a talented writer; these are all books you could have written. And while I can appreciate your principles in choosing the subjects of your book based solely on what interests you, you should also consider that a book with a more commercial subject would expose your talent to new readers. Once these readers have seen your work, they would follow you to future books on whatever subjects you chose.