'The Librarians'
Blog

ALIA and the NLA hosted 50 library people and friends to a big screen viewing at the National Library Conference Room.  Roxanne Missingham, ALIA President and Sue Hutley, ALIA Executive Director welcomed the guests.   Sniggers, belly laughes, groans and cackling were all part of the sound effects.  I am sure we all associated with so many of the characters, props and situations of the first episode.  We hope that we might all meet back at the final episode to also ‘do it all again’. 

One Canberra opening night participant also has a report here :  http://theshoppingsherpa.blogspot.com/2007/11/librarians.html

At the conclusion of the show we were lucky enough to be farewelled briefly by ABC Managing Director Mark Scott who happened to be in the building for another function.  Thanks Mark !

A capacity crowd of 50 librarians crowded into the ABC’s Ultimo Centre Library in Sydney last night for a special viewing of The Librarians. Thanks to the generosity of the ABC’s Content Services (aka library and archive services), we enjoyed a tour of the library facilities, learned about the work of the Content Services team, enjoyed a glass of bubbly, and then settled down to watch The Librarians. I heard groans, laughter, and the odd gasp as we watched, but will let others write a review. Suffice to say, as one viewer put it, “it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, and I’ll be watching future episodes with interest to see how things develop.”

Unexpected highlights included having our photos taken in the foyer with Big Ted,  a brush with fame when Julia Gillard walked in the front door at the same time many of us did, and taking home an ABC showbag. A big thank you to Mary Jane Stannus, Kate Burnham and Sal Russo from ABC Content Services, and to Alyson Dalby, ALIA New Grads, for a great night out! We’re just sorry there wasn’t room for the other 150 Sydney librarians who hoped to join us.

It was standing room only (well, actually sitting on the floor room) at our Melbourne screening party. We passed the popcorn around, had a drink or 2 and a load of laughs. The sets and the characters looked remarkably familiar. We wondered if some of our staff meetings had been bugged. We congratulate the creators on a job well done.

I still think “The Librarians” was based on a particular Melbourne public library service, with staff acting as consultants to the script writers, but no-one in the crowd was owning up last night.

We enjoyed the show so much that we’ve decided to come back together at the end of the series for the final episode. Thanks to RMIT for hosting us for the 1st episode. Keep our seats warm, we’ll be back in 5 weeks time to do it again.

There are some great and imaginative launch parties being planned - including a PJ party! What are you planning?