Free for All: Inside the Public Library Nearly 12 years within the making, Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon’s Free for All: Inside the Public Library is a heartfelt journey into the historical past of an establishment that went from a radical thought (the “Free Library Movement”), to an entity taken as a right, to a present-day web site of ginned up controversy. It’s additionally a up to date cross-country celebration of the (overwhelmingly feminine) librarians then and now who fought, and proceed to battle, for the suitable to information for all.
A number of weeks earlier than the doc’s April twenty ninth debut on PBS’s Independent Lens, Filmmaker reached out to the co-directors, each lifelong library lovers (certainly. Logsdon had visited over 100 libraries in almost each state by the point she was 12 because of her road-tripping teacher-parents) to be taught all about their thorough chronicling of what the duo deem “the last truly public commons.”
Filmmaker: Since you started engaged on this movie throughout the Obama administration — and began occupied with it proper after Hurricane Katrina) — I’m curious to listen to what your preliminary thought was, and the way which may have modified over the dozen years you collaborated on the challenge.
Logsdon: Almost the one factor that our preliminary thought and the ultimate movie have in frequent is that the topic continues to be public libraries! My first thought was to do a largely observational movie, in a single large city library, that would come with one very quick historic chapter someplace close to the start. Instead I fell in love with the historical past, and the unfolding of a historic story grew to become our main construction.
We additionally determined to heart the challenges that small and rural libraries face. That led me to incorporate the multigenerational experiences of my circle of relatives in rural and small city Midwestern libraries.
Faulknor: Since we had been going to deal with one large city library, we checked out (no pun supposed) San Francisco, Chicago and Queens as a result of they serve so many alternative communities, talking so many alternative languages.
We in the end selected the principle San Francisco library as a result of it was an interesting confluence of individuals from the neighborhood — within the instant neighborhood is City Hall, UC Berkeley Law School, methadone clinics, homeless shelters, and the previous Twitter headquarters. In addition, as a result of we stay in San Francisco it was so much cheaper when it comes to journey prices.
We filmed sufficient to get a stable pattern reel. Then we convened a panel and confirmed excerpts on the large annual American Library Association (ALA) convention. People cherished what they noticed, however many within the viewers identified that the San Francisco library has a really strong “friends” group and devoted financing from town, so it’s properly funded. They tell us that many small and rural libraries are struggling. We determined to be taught extra, and found some superb tales — libraries don’t simply maintain tales in books. Every day tales are unfolding inside libraries, from the people who find themselves working in them and the thousands and thousands who use these libraries.
We locked image in February 2020, proper earlier than the pandemic. There are over 700 archival objects that we needed to clear and/or get hi-res copies for, however the whole lot closed down. While we waited for locations to reopen issues began to vary. The earlier model’s main drama was the closing of the entire library system in Douglas County, Oregon; however then ebook challenges elevated, as did assaults on libraries and librarians. So Dawn opened it again up and the ultimate story began to emerge, with Dawn’s private household story surprisingly holding it collectively.
Filmmaker: How did you resolve which characters and places to deal with?
Logsdon: Very early on, I made a decision that I needed this story to be in regards to the individuals who use libraries somewhat than in regards to the library buildings themselves, or the directors in cost of operating them.
What stunned me was discovering all of the forgotten ladies in library historical past, particularly the on-the-ground librarians who instantly serve the public. There are hundreds and hundreds of different dramatic tales unfolding in libraries on daily basis, and we’ve received a ton of them on our slicing room flooring. The modern tales that caught are those that the majority resonated with the bigger historic themes we needed to deliver alive.
Faulknor: We did lots of analysis. We talked to lots of librarians and library historians, learn lots of historical past books, and spent lots of time digging by means of library archives. We visited dozens of libraries and sat by means of 4 years of ALA conferences to find all of the superb issues which are taking place in libraries at this time.
Filmmaker: Considering the political local weather, did anybody you reached out to say no to take part? Which characters or storylines had been left on the slicing room flooring?
Logsdon: No, nobody declined to take part, however numerous individuals solely needed to push their explicit political agenda after we interviewed them. Those all ended up on the slicing room flooring as a result of that’s not the form of story we had been attempting to inform.
What’s exceptional to me in regards to the story of the American public library is how a lot of it cuts throughout political traces. So I used to be notably hooked up to a piece during which a number of well-known individuals from wildly totally different political or cultural camps instructed their very own childhood library tales: Sonia Sotomayor subsequent to Clarence Thomas. Ronald Reagan with Barack Obama. Janice Joplin and Warren Buffett. Sadly, that part in the end needed to get reduce too.
I hope sometime somebody takes all our outtakes and shapes them into one thing, as a result of I’m nonetheless hooked up to a bunch of the tales and forgotten heroes that didn’t make it into the ultimate reduce.
Filmmaker: Could you speak a bit about balancing the archival footage with the modern? What was the modifying course of like?
Logsdon: I like working with archival supplies. When libraries shut down for awhile throughout Covid, I received much more obsessed with monitoring down supplies utilizing all the nice free digital archives that had been nonetheless open on-line.
By the tip of the method we had a database with hundreds of photographs from a whole bunch of little archives and libraries. It undoubtedly is without doubt one of the most important causes the edit took so long as it did. Though I feel that wealth of images that hasn’t been seen a lot earlier than is what makes the movie wealthy and stunning.
Filmmaker: I’m additionally curious to listen to about your affect marketing campaign, particularly with PBS now within the crosshairs of the present administration.
Logsdon: Because the destiny of public libraries is so well timed and fraught proper now, we made the choice to get the movie out in a non-traditional approach. That meant that after we didn’t get into Sundance, we had to choose between holding the movie again whereas we waited to listen to from different essential festivals versus agreeing to take part in a special, extra grassroots alternative to deliver the movie on to public libraries.
One of the explanations we made this movie was for individuals throughout the United States to collect in particular person, at their native library, to observe after which speak about what was taking place to the library in their very own group. This has been made doable by our broadcaster Independent Lens/PBS by means of their Indie Lens Pop-Up group screening program.
We’ve been thrilled by how a lot the movie is resonating. We had been instructed to anticipate about 30-40 screenings, and as a substitute we’re already at greater than 400 – with extra calls coming on a regular basis. From the suggestions we’ve gotten thus far, it’s sparking dialogue throughout the political spectrum.
So whereas it’s been humbling as a filmmaker to not get the status of the massive festivals we’ve gone to prior to now, this has been far more thrilling. And I feel extra essential for public libraries and librarians, who’re so beneath siege proper now.
We wish to proceed on this path of providing native in-person screenings/conversations at libraries after the published on April twenty ninth. With nearly 17,000 public libraries within the US, it’s an enormous challenge. We had an enormous proposal pending with the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund our effort to maintain touring to libraries with the movie for at the least one other 12 months. Now the NEH finances has been slashed. Many initiatives have been retroactively defunded, and it’s not clear whether or not any new NEH grants can be awarded this coming 12 months. We’re at the moment speaking to foundations and personal donors about serving to us proceed our tour.
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