Happy New Year! Before launching into the new year, I wanted to take a quick look back at favorite posts from the past year. First, I will highlight the most viewed posts I wrote and published this past year, and then I will go into detail about my own personal favorite posts from this past year. There is a bit of overlap between the two lists — always a pleasant surprise and unplanned, because I always make my list of my own personal favorite posts first. I hope you enjoy revisiting these posts!
Reader’s choice: Top 5 viewed posts published in 2022
- First impressions: 18 thoughts and questions I had about Wong while watching ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ (2022) – published June 2022
- Guest post: Analyzing the witchy librarian in ‘Hilda’ TV series + new movie – guest post by Burkely Hermann, published March 2022
- Guest post: YU in the library – guest post by Ljubomir (Ljuba) Branković, published January 2022
- Librarian-themed clothing collection (2022 update) – published May 2022. Look for a related update coming soon!
- A research quest in ‘Winter’s Tale’ (2014) + how to tell the difference between microfilm vs. microfiche – published February 2022
Honorable mention:
- 31 thoughts and questions I had while watching ‘A Winter Romance’ (2021) – published Dec. 2021
This post had the most views of ANY post this past year, so I felt like it deserved a shout-out, even though it was a post published at the end of December 2021.
Librarian’s choice: Top 5 personal favorite posts published in 2022
The majority of my picks below are presented in chronological order.
From Feb. 2022: A research quest in ‘Winter’s Tale’ (2014) + how to tell the difference between microfilm vs. microfiche
Winter’s Tale is a weird movie, y’all. I truly thought I was hallucinating while watching parts of this movie (e.g., Russell Crowe’s TERRIBLE Irish accent, Will Smith popping up out of the blue). I did not expect to go as deep as I did while watching and analyzing this movie. I thought it would be a short post, but the entire movie revolves around a research quest, so there were several different library and archives-related elements to that quest to analyze. I also unexpectedly ended up outlining the major differences between microfilm and microfiche, because this movie carelessly (and cluelessly?) mixed up the two. Enjoy revisiting me getting all CAPSY on my microforms soap box! 😉
Read the post: A research quest in ‘Winter’s Tale’ (2014) + how to tell the difference between microfilm vs. microfiche
From May 2022: Reader poll write-up, Spring 2022 | A reel librarian gets shushed in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961)
I really enjoyed re-reading this post — yes, I re-read my own posts! In this reader poll post, I shine a light into the dark and disturbing corners of this classic Audrey Hepburn movie, but I also highlight bits of joy in this movie, including Holly’s utter delight in learning about the card catalog system and seeing her friend’s name and book included in the library. “There you are, right in the public library!”
Read the post: Reader poll write-up, Spring 2022 | A reel librarian gets shushed in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961)
From Summer 2022: All the round-ups of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in the MCU
Maybe it’s cheating to include 5 posts in one, but I think of the MCU series this past summer as one cohesive block. This past spring, after I watched and analyzed Wong in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I thought it would be a fun exercise to revisit all the MCU movies and catalog all the library, archives, and reel librarian scenes. I thought the project would be pretty easy — but I was WRONG. It was a lot of work, and I had to make a lot of decisions, like:
- Should I present the movies in chronological order by when they were released, or in timeline order? (I ended up doing the former.)
- Should I integrate the movies and TV series in Phase Four into one huge post, or separate them? (I chose the latter, separating them into two posts, one for the Phase Four movies, and one for the Phase Four TV series, thus far.)
- Should I include the Spider-Man movies, which are owned by Sony? (I did, and I had to request them from my local public library, as the solo Spider-Man movies aren’t included in the Disney+ platform.)
- Should I include the peripheral series and shorts, such as Agents of Shield and Daredevil? (I chose not to, for the time being.)
I also hadn’t realized how many MCU movies I had not gotten around to watching (or hadn’t watched very closely the first time). And I have to admit, watching and rewatching all the MCU TV series nearly broke me, y’all. And in the middle of the series, Marvel Studios revised its Phase Four slate, and provided details about Phases Five and Six! (As Phase Four is now officially closed, I will be revisiting and finishing off the MCU Phase Four posts next month, so stay tuned!)
With all these headaches, why did this series make my fave posts? Because, ultimately, these posts are the kind of posts that are really useful to do, as they serve as handy reference posts for future use. (Yes, I revisit my own posts for research purposes!) I think this is also a reason why a lot of my older posts continue to get lots of views, even years after they’re published, because they serve as reference posts for other readers, as well. And for your own handy reference, you can enjoy all the MCU-related posts from this summer collected below:
Read the posts:
A round-up of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in MCU’s Phase One – published June 2022
A round-up of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in MCU’s Phase Two – published July 2022
A round-up of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in MCU’s Phase Three – published July 2022
A round-up of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in MCU’s Phase Four movies (so far) – published Aug. 2022
A round-up of library, archives, and reel librarian scenes in MCU’s Phase Four TV series (so far) – published Aug. 2022
From Nov. 2022: Comparing the central librarian character in ‘Grindhouse’ (2003) vs. ‘All About Evil’ (2010)
As I started analyzing the reel librarians in the camp cult classic flick All About Evil (2010), I was thrilled to realize that the special edition BluRay that was released this past summer included director Joshua Grannell’s original inspiration, his short film Grindhouse (2003). I hadn’t planned on doing a bonus post, but I’m glad I did, as it was really fun to compare the two versions of the central reel librarian character, Deborah “Deb” Tennis, in different ways. I especially enjoyed thinking through how to best utilize the “image compare” graphic widget to help visually compare aspects of the two films.
Read the post: Comparing the central librarian character in ‘Grindhouse’ (2003) vs. ‘All About Evil’ (2010)
From Dec. 2022: Reader poll write-up, Fall 2022 | ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985) + its school library setting
I did NOT expect that two of my personal fave posts for the year would be reader poll write-up posts, but here we are again, with my write-up analysis of the teen angst classic, The Breakfast Club (1985). This was a really fun post to do! Although there is no reel librarian in this film, almost all of the movie takes place in the school library, so this was a different kind of post for me, as I focused primarily on the setting of the school library. It was an interesting challenging to think about how to structure the post. The propmasters for The Breakfast Club did an AMAZING job (and yes, it was a set, as I explain more about in the post), as it is one of the most realistic and detailed library sets I’ve ever seen onscreen. And I’ve seen a LOT of reel librarian movies, as y’all know. 😉
Read the post: Reader poll write-up, Fall 2022 | ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985) + its school library setting
Did you have any personal favorite posts from this past year? Please share!
REEL LIBRARIANS 
I have a deep trivia question about Preminger’s “Anatomy of a Murder.” When Paul first speaks with Laura, in his office, she sits on a couch that has a framed picture of a man over it. Who is depicted?
I’ll send you a picture if you write back to the email below or see if you can view it on Dropbox. Also, unless I missed it in your post, do you know the name of the case that the author of the book (John D. Voelker) defended that was the basis of the novel? I suspect there are no cites, since it’s unlikely there was an appellate decision.
Hi, Ken! Very interesting trivia questions regarding Anatomy of a Murder. I did find the answer to the name of the case that the author based the novel on, the Chenoweth murder trial in 1952. Here’s an article detailing that case, which I found via the Wayback Machine, https://web.archive.org/web/20220518195236/https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/killing-michigan-bar-owner-1952-inspired-film-anatomy-murder-article-1.423705 . No luck so far with the photograph with the framed photograph… I uploaded the photograph to Google Lens to see if it would make a potential match, but the results were inconclusive and widely varied. I also looked up different trivia for the movie, hoping someone had tracked down the photograph, but no success yet.
And it sounds like you’ve already checked out the post I did analyzing the law library in Anatomy of a Murder? https://reel-librarians.com/2014/04/08/anatomy-of-a-law-library/ — and you’re correct, I didn’t include that info in that post, as I was focusing primarily on the law library and its purpose in the film. But I’m always up for interesting research tangents! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and asking reference questions, and I hope my research that answered one of your queries is helpful.
Cheers, Jennifer
I found the transcripts of the actual 1952 case here: https://nmu.edu/voelker/court_transcripts.htm
Ken Weiss
>
How awesome! Excellent research, and thanks for sharing!