Sunday, August 26, 2012

Cecil - Character Interview


Cecil Miller 
Audio-visual Librarian, MA, MLS

Don’t ask me why I’m working in this town that would be the perfect setting for “Our Town.” It’s nice enough, but there’s absolutely no entertainment. After graduate school I took the job of AV Librarian to earn some money for my move to Hollywood. I want to be a director. My friends tell me I should try for a job in one of the studio libraries, but I’m still building my resume.

Here in Shipsfeather’s Library I curate the audio-visual collections. That means I select the visual media of all types, except for except for audiobooks and juvenile titles. All the formats that you have to listen to or view with some kind of device are my purview. Movies, TV shows, documentaries, educational videos, and music. My department also has computers for DVD viewing and one very old microfilm reader for film not available in any other format.

Library Director Liberty Cutter is great. I mean she encourages me to plan film series programs and create montages of classic films. Without a movie house, the poor people of this town are limited to movies on cable TV and streaming movies to computers and other small screen devises, but that is so lame. I feel my special job here is to introduce the screen gems of the past.

As you might guess I spend a lot of time watching movies. Besides the movie channels on my big screen TV, I travel to Dayton and Columbus and even Pittsburg and Cleveland for film festivals. I have a complete personal collection of Michael Moore films.

One more thing -– You’d be surprised at Liberty’s taste in movies. She loves fantasy, as do a lot of librarians (I won't venture a guess about that). But she also likes some movies made for children like 101 Dalmatians. Most surprising is her obsession with Disney’s Shaggy Dog. She loves that movie. I mean loves. Before she purchased her own copy, she checked it out so often we had to replace the DVD. Everyone has their quirks. The characteristics that make movie characters interesting also make librarians interesting. And this library is filled with quirky librarians. Maybe I should write a script…

There is something odd in this town... Just whispers, but I think there are shifters around. Now, that sounds more like a Hitchcock film. Impossible. Who'd believe small town librarians were really dog-shifters?

As soon as the next season of Ohio film festivals is over, I’m sending my resume to Lionsgate.

Favorite Reading: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and Steven Spielberg: A Biography, 2nd Edition.

The Shapeshifters' Library Series

  Read 

to learn more about Cecil's library, the dog-shifters, and the werewolf book-burners.

In Print September 9th!

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