Happy New Year! Before launching into the new year, I always like 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 the list of my own personal favorite posts first. I hope you enjoy revisiting these posts!

Reader’s choice: Top 5 viewed posts published in 2023

1. First impressions: ‘Barbie’ (2023) + its pivotal school library scene — published July 2023
2. 7 and 1/2 reasons to revisit reel librarian indie classic ‘Party Girl’ (1995) — published June 2023
3. The ‘glorious purpose’ of research: Archives + research scenes in ‘Loki’ Season 1 (2021) — published August 2023
4. Librarian-themed jewelry collection (2023 update) — published March 2023
5. MORE fun with call numbers on the new ‘Shelved’ TV show — published May 2023

Honorable mention:

• Reader poll write-up, Fall 2022 | ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985) + its school library setting — published Dec. 2022

This post would have been in the top 5 list had it been published in 2023 — I posted it just a few days beforehand, on Dec. 28, 2022 — so I felt like it deserved a shout-out.

Librarian’s choice: Top 5 personal favorite posts published in 2023

My personal picks below are presented in chronological order by publication date.

From May 2023: Q&A about library props + call numbers with a Hollywood prop buyer

This post was so exciting! I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Melissa Frankel, a set decoration buyer and prop buyer in L.A., after she had left a comment and shared that she had discovered my blog “while looking for dewey decimal examples to put on fake library books on a tv show.” I learned SO MUCH from chatting with Melissa, including the difference between props and sets, and insider info about library book props!

Read the post: Q&A about library props + call numbers with a Hollywood prop buyer

From June 2023: 7 and 1/2 reasons to revisit reel librarian indie classic ‘Party Girl’ (1995)

This post has made me laugh each time I have re-read it! (Yes, I re-read my own posts 😉 ) This post came about because Party Girl was released on a new Blu-Ray special edition this past spring. I also shared this post a few times this past year with real-life librarian colleagues. Basically, I never stop recommending Party Girl! It also inspired my Halloween costume this year, as you’ll revisit below.

Read the post: 7 and 1/2 reasons to revisit reel librarian indie classic ‘Party Girl’ (1995)

From June 2023: A paradise lost? Queen Charlotte’s private royal library

In this post, I had a deep-dive research tangent into the royal library of real-life Queen Charlotte (1744-1818), who was married to King George III and became Britain’s longest-serving Queen Consort (57+ years!). This post was inspired by both the Netflix mini-series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023) — which has a brief library cameo — and a Noble Blood podcast episode entitled “The Mad King’s Queen,” in which I learned that Queen Charlotte curated her own private library. And thus, a post idea was born! This post was FASCINATING to research, especially when I learned about Charlotte’s personal librarian, Edward Harding. I hope you enjoy this post as much I enjoyed researching and writing it!

Read the post: A paradise lost? Queen Charlotte’s private royal library

From July 2023: First impressions: ‘Barbie’ (2023) + its pivotal school library scene

The year 2023 was definitely Barbie’s renaissance year! I loved everything Barbie this year — the build-up from the movie trailers, Margot Robbie’s Barbie-inspired red carpet fashion, the amazing writing and acting cranked up to 11 in the movie itself, the “I’m Just Ken” song and video (my husband and I replay this video all.the.time, y’all!), everything. Plus, the movie included a library scene that was absolutely essential to the movie’s final act. AMAZING. I think you can tell the joy I was feeling after watching this movie and in writing this post!

Read the post: First impressions: ‘Barbie’ (2023) + its pivotal school library scene

From Oct. 2023: ‘Party Girl’ | Reel librarian Halloween costume

Real talk… I was this close to doing a “Librarian Barbie” Halloween costume! Ultimately, though, I had to stay true to my reel librarian roots and channel my favorite reel librarian character, Mary, the title role from Party Girl, which was immortalized by indie queen Parker Posey. This costume was SO FUN to put together — I like to pull pieces from my own wardrobe for no-cost or low-cost costumes — and my husband and I had a lot of fun taking photos in and around Tacoma. Enjoy!

Read the post: ‘Party Girl’ | Reel librarian Halloween costume

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Did you have any personal favorite posts from this past year? Please share!

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

1. First impressions: 18 thoughts and questions I had about Wong while watching ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ (2022) – published June 2022
2. Guest post: Analyzing the witchy librarian in ‘Hilda’ TV series + new movie – guest post by Burkely Hermann, published March 2022
3. Guest post: YU in the library – guest post by Ljubomir (Ljuba) Branković, published January 2022
4. Librarian-themed clothing collection (2022 update) – published May 2022. Look for a related update coming soon!
5. 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

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Did you have any personal favorite posts from this past year? Please share!

As we are all probably feeling anxious and stressed during this global coronavirus pandemic, how about taking a break from binge-watching movies and TV series in order to binge-read about reel librarians? I looked through my site stats to find out the top 10 most-read and popular posts of all time. Below, I have listed them in reverse order, from #10 to #1, along with the first paragraph of each post, to whet your appetite.

Enjoy! 🙂

#10. ‘You, Me and Dupree’ — and the Naughty Librarian (Aug. 2015)

“You fixed Dupree up with a Mormon librarian?”

The 2006 film You, Me, and Dupree (2006) is an odd one. It stars Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson, and Matt Dillon, and it’s directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who also executive-produced the TV comedy, Community. You’d think those are ingredients for a potentially amusing film. But overall, those ingredients never really come together, and the half-baked film ends up feeling much longer than its 108 minutes. …

… continue reading ‘You, Me and Dupree’ — and the Naughty Librarian

#9. Harry Potter and Madam Pince (Dec. 2012)

How the Hogwarts librarian is depicted in the Harry Potter books

I recently reread the Harry Potter series, and this time around, took note of how the librarian, Madam Pince, is depicted. This librarian is never mentioned by name in the films as such, but she does make a physical appearance in the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). As portrayed by Sally Mortemore, the reel Madam Pince — her first name, Irma, is also revealed in that film’s credits — is physically more attractive than her counterpart in print. …

… continue reading Harry Potter and Madam Pince

#8. Books and book-burning in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ (May 2017)

“Is there not freedom in the very choice of which book you want to be?”

I recently rewatched the 1966 film version of Fahrenheit 451, directed by French New Wave director Francois Truffaut and starring Julie Christie in a dual role and Oscar Werner as Montag, the fireman who falls in love with books, the very thing he’s charged with burning. …

… continue reading Books and book-burning in ‘Fahrenheit 451’

#7. First impressions: Monsters University (July 2013)

“What are you afraid of? You just angered a 40-foot librarian!”

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned how two members of my family had tipped me off to a reel librarian featured in the recent release, Monsters University (2013). Since that post went live, I have had five additional friends recommend I watch the movie, which I did over the Independence Day long weekend. …

… continue reading First impressions: ‘Monsters University’

#6. The Jedi librarian (March 2013)

“If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist.”

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I watched the fan edit of the Star War prequel trilogy, entitled Star Wars:  Rise of the Empire, which was compiled back in 2007. Out of the 7+ hours of the original prequels (Episode I: The Phantom Menace, 1999; Episode II: Attack of the Clones, 2002; Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, 2005), this techie fan managed to whittle the story down to a still-healthy-yet-manageable 4 hours. It seemed like a majority of the second prequel, Attack of the Clones, stayed on the cutting-room floor (no more painful love scenes out on the lake by Naboo, thank goodness!), but guess which scene made the cut in its entirety? …

… continue reading The Jedi librarian

#5. First impressions: ‘Hidden Figures’ and its library scene (Feb. 2017)

The reel librarian character echoes the barriers that were starting to crack, brick by brick and book by book.

I recently watched the Best Picture-nominated film Hidden Figures, which is a biographical film featuring three African-American female mathematicians — or “computers” — at NASA during the early 1960s. The film sheds lights on their individual and collective struggles to earn personal and professional respect, both as women and as African-Americans in a field dominated with white males. The three female leads all deliver top-notch performances: Taraji P. Henson as brilliant mathematician Katherine G. Johnson; Octavia Spencer in an Oscar-nominated performance as mathematician and computer programmer Dorothy Vaughan; and Janelle Monáe as firecracker engineer Mary Jackson. …

… continue reading First impressions: ‘Hidden Figures’ and its library scene

#4. Librarian t-shirt collection (Sept. 2014)

“I have secret powers… I’m a librarian!”

I was going through some of the archived posts here on this Reel Librarians blog, and I came across this early post about my “Marian the Librarian” coffee mug. And then two things clicked: …

… continue reading Librarian t-shirt collection

#3. Marian or Marion? (May 2012)

Researching the reel librarian in ‘The Music Man’

I am a stickler for spelling and punctuation (see my post last week on that anal-retentive trait), so it still bugs me that I can’t ever seem to remember if the librarian in The Music Man is spelled “Marian” or “Marion.” I spelled it BOTH ways in my undergraduate thesis, which still makes me cringe. And that’s probably what inspired this blog post — maybe after writing this, I won’t have to look it up again. 😉 …

… continue reading Marian or Marion?

#2. Naughty Librarians (ladies, take it away) (March 2012)

Exploring the female Naughty Librarian character type

A rose by any other name… the Naughty Librarian. We’re down to the final category of exploring reel librarian character types (see previous posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here). And I know I’m going to get a lot of hits out of this post, as “naughty librarian” — and similar phrases like “sexy librarian” or “tomcats librarian” —  are the MOST POPULAR search terms that lead to my blog. It’s a classy joint I’m running here, this Reel Librarians blog. …

… continue reading Naughty Librarians (ladies, take it away)

#1. ‘The Killing Kind’ vs. ‘The Attic’ (Oct. 2013)

The Attic (1980) serves as a kind of cinematic continuation of two characters featured in The Killing Kind (1973)

As I mentioned in last week’s post, The Attic (1980) serves as a kind of cinematic continuation of two characters featured in The Killing Kind (1973). I have a copy of both films, so I set about watching The Killing Kind this past weekend and comparing the two. There are some eery similarities in both films, but some interesting differences, as well. Enjoy! …

… continue reading ‘The Killing Kind’ vs. ‘The Attic’

Any personal faves?

Any personal favorites among these Top 10? Please leave a comment and share! And please continue washing your hands and practicing social distancing. Be well, everyone!