Elvis Is In The Building - Thursday Noon Videos in January 2014

Every Thursday in January, the celluloid Elvis Presley will make an appearance upon the projection screen in the Main Library's Koret Auditorium. For our Thursday noon Videos on Large Screen selection we are pleased to present the series "Elvis is in the Building."

On Thursday, January 2, 2014, we will show Jailhouse Rock (1957, 96 minutes). Elvis Presley’s 3rd film stars the king as a convicted felon! After serving time for manslaughter, young Vince Everett becomes a teenage rock star. Featuring the title track “Jailhouse Rock”, as well as "Don't Leave Me Now," and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care."

The film for January 9 is Kissin’ Cousins (1964, rated PG, 96 minutes). The King tries his hand at a dual role as a soldier and his own hillbilly cousin. Elvis the soldier tries to convince his simple cousin to give up their land to install a new missile base. Includes songs, “Barefoot Ballad,” “Long Lonely Highway.”

The January 16 film is Viva Las Vegas (1964, rated PG, 85 minutes). Everyone comes up a winner when Elvis Presley, the racing-car driver, meets Ann-Margret, the Vegas swimming teacher with swivel hips as fast as his. The high gear stars, climactic Grand Prix and ten songs, including "The Lady Loves Me," made this Elvis’s most popular film.

On January 23 we will show Live a Little, Love a Little (1968, rated PG, 90 minutes). In his 28th film, Elvis plays frazzled Greg, scrambling to keep his work life afloat while also contending with the kooky attentions of a beach beauty (Michele Carey). Includes songs, “A Little Less Conversation”, “Edge of Reality.”

For our January finally on the 30th we will show the documentary This is Elvis (1981, 110 minutes). Though several actors portray Elvis Presley at different stages of his life, this documentary is comprised mostly of actual performance footage and interviews with Elvis, his fans and those close to him.

All films start at 12 noon in the Koret Auditorium.  These programs are sponsored by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.  All Library programs are free and open to the public.

Further reading:

Elvis Cinema and Popular Culture by Douglas Brode (McFarland & Co., 2006).

Know Your SFPL Call Numbers - 792.1, 792.5, 791.43

We all love the Dewey Decimal System.  However, just as the world we live in changes, the Dewey Decimal System also changes over time.

At the time of the earliest editions of Melville Dewey's Decimal Classification and Relative Index for Libraries, Clippings, Notes, Etc the medium of motion pictures did not yet exist. Before an actual call number was assigned for this subject, the librarians the San Francisco Public Library invented their own solution, placing them within the Dewey number 792 - Theater, pantomime, opera.

source: Melville Dewey, Decimal Classification and Relativ [sic] Index for Libraries, Clippings, Notes, Etc., edition 9 revized [sic], (Lake Placid Club NY, 1915).

Dewey number 792 was a reasonable choice, especially given that the earliest films without sound had much in common with pantomime. Unfortunately, when the compilers of the Dewey Decimal Classification got around to including film they placed it within the Dewey number 791 - Public entertainment.  Thus the San Francisco Public Library became at odds with the official Dewey Decimal system.

In the days before computers and computer networking, assigning heterodox Dewey decimal numbers was not a terrible thing.  All book cataloging was done in house.  As long as San Francisco Public Library catalogers knew the library's established call numbers for film there was no problem at all.

In time, the San Francisco like nearly all other libraries joined OCLC - originally the Ohio College Library Center, later the Online Computer Library Center - a consortium that created a networked, standardized, communal library catalog.  This meant that member libraries could take advantage of the cataloging work done at other institutions, saving them the time and expense of cataloging each item themselves.  As this happened, the San Francisco Public Library found that many of its long established call numbers were at odds with the accepted standards of the Dewey classification and the Library of Congress (a major contributor of records to OCLC).  Assigning in-house numbers to these materials added to the time and expense of bringing books to the shelves.

In 1992 the Library decided to do away with almost all of our in-house practices for assigning call numbers and to follow the most recent edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification.  This has meant that for many areas, books with a similar subject matter has gotten scattered across more than one call number.

It is an interested question - is film a public performance or a stage presentation?  According to the Dewey system it is the latter. Source: Dewey Dewey Classification Summaries (OCLC website)

One of the emblematic problems we encountered after 1993 was the division of our film collection into two discrete sections. 

The bottom line is: books on motion pictures prior to 1993 used call numbers 792.1 and 792.5.  Books acquired after 1993 have been given the call number 791.43.  (This problem is exacerbated here at the Main Library where was have so many titles, and they happen to be separated by the elevator lobby between ranges 44 and 45).  This is further muddied by the fact that books related to film and video making have been assigned the Dewey number 778.5 ("Fields and Kinds of Photography) and books on the motion picture industry have been assigned the Dewey number 384.8 ("Communication, telecommunication").

The guide below gives the old 792 San Francisco numbers and their translations to current Dewey numbers.  Happy browsing!


792.1 = 791.4302
Film - actors and actresses biographies

792.5 = 791.43 / 791.4309
Film history, criticism

792.5 = 791.4305
Film magazines

792.5 = 791.4306 = 384.8309
Film finance

792.5 = 384.806-384.809
Film studios

792.501 = 791.4301
Film theory

792.502 = 791.4302
Film directors

792.503 = 791.4303
Film dictionaries and encyclopedias

792.507 = 791.4307
Film collections

792.51 = 791.4372 / 791.4375
Screenplays

792.52 = 791.4309
Films - historic treatment

792.53 = 778.535
Film making - editing

792.55 = 778.534
Film making - special effects

792.59 = 791.437
Films

792.59xx - 791.4309
film - geographic presentation

The Most Requested Art, Music and Recreation Center books in December 2013

The books below are listed in order of the number of holds placed on them reflecting their current popularity at the San Francisco Public Library.

The majority of titles are about some aspect of the arts and entertainment. Some are about motion pictures and actors (A Story Lately Told, Coreyography, The Wes Anderson Collection, Moments That Made the Movies), others about are about television (Johnny Carson, Paddle Your Own Canoe, Making Masterpieces). Works by and about comedians also remain popular (Still foolin 'em, Rob Delaney, Furious Cool). There are also a couple of musician's memoirs (Wild Tales, and Simple Dreams), and a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach.  The new biography of choreographer Bob Fosse is also very popular.

There are also a few books relating to creation and creativity, like Lena Corwin's Made By Hand, Remodelista, Daily Rituals.  David Hockney's 2001 book Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering The Lost Techniques of The Old Masters is undoubtedly popular because of the current exhibit at the DeYoung Museum.  One surprising entry is a 1996 book Cool, Grey City of Love: A Celebration of San Francisco.  It's likely a very fine book, but I wonder if the people who placed holds on this title meant to request Gary Kamiya's new book Cool Gray City of Love (grey with an "e," versus gray with an "a").

Finally we can't leave out the one sports title, Wheelmen, that chronicles the long Lance Armstrong saga.

The popularity of the books may mean a wait in getting a copy to borrow.  But because we either own or are ordering multiple copies of these books, the wait should not be very long.  Happy reading.

See also:
The Most Requested Art, Music and Recreation Center books in May 2013
 Art, Music and Recreation Center Books in Demand, late December 2012


A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London, and New York by Anjelica Huston (Scribner, 2013).

Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin (An Eamon Dolan Book/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

Wheelmen: Lance Armstrong, the Tour de France, and the Greatest Sports Conspiracy Ever by Reed Albergotti and Vanessa O'Connell (Gotham Books, 2013).

Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living by Nick Offerman. New York : Dutton, 2013.

Still foolin' 'em: where i've been, where i'm going, and where the hell are my keys? by Billy Crystal (Henry Holt and Company, 2013).

The Wes Anderson Collection by Matt Zoller Seitz (Abrams, 2013).

Moments That Made The Movies by David Thomson (Thames & Hudson, 2013).

Rob Delaney: Mother, Wife, Sister, Human, Warrior, Falcon, Yardstick, Turban, Cabbage by Rob Delaney (Spiegel & Grau, 2013).

Lena Corwin's Made By Hand / photography by Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2013).

Coreyography: A Memoir by Corey Feldman (St. Martin's Press, 2013).

Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering The Lost Techniques of The Old Masters by David Hockney (Viking Studio, 2001).

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

Remodelista: A Manual For The Considered Home by Julie Carlson (Artisan, 2013).

Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life by Graham Nash (Crown Archetype, 2013).

Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir by Linda Ronstadt (Simon & Schuster, 2013).

Making Masterpiece: 25 Years Behind the Scenes at Masterpiece and Mystery! on PBS by Rebecca Eaton with Patricia Mulcahy (Viking, 2013).

Fosse by Sam Wasson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013).

Cool, Grey City of Love: A Celebration of San Francisco; drawings by Jane Chamberlin with loving words by some of the city's most beloved poets (Tinkachew Press, 1996).

Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and The World That Made Him by David Henry and Joe Henry (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2013).

Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven by John Eliot Gardiner (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

Music Online From Alexander Street Press

There are 51,888 albums and over 760,000 tracks (and growing) of streaming music in Music Online.

Music Online brings together, on a single cross-searchable platform, the entire suite of Alexander Street Press music in the SFPL subscription.  Every sound file in the collection is indexed by subjects, historical events, genres, people, cultural groups, places, time periods, ensembles, and more...

Because this resource is so rich with music and possibility we wanted to tell you all about the streaming music and bring your attention to the ability to create personal accounts in order to create and save playlists from one session to another. And you can even share them!
The quickest way to get to this resource is to click on eResources and then on eMusic.

The five individual databases that make up SFPL’s subscription are listed here and are worth exploring on their own. 

• American Song - 7,141 albums, equaling 122,211 tracksAmerican Song is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past.  The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more.

 

• Classical Music Library - 14,341 albums, equaling 252,928 tracks This ever growing collection includes recordings from the world's greatest labels including Hyperion, Bridge Records, Sanctuary Classics, Artemis-Vanguard, Hänssler Classic, Vox and many more. Coverage includes music written from the earliest times (e.g. Gregorian Chant) to the present, including many contemporary composers. Repertoire ranges from vocal and choral music, to chamber, orchestral, solo instrumental, and opera.

• Contemporary World Music - 16,701 albums, equaling 209,182 tracks
  This collection delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. The database contains important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more.

• Jazz Music Library - 10,756 albums, equaling 133,668 tracks Jazz Music Library is the largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres.

• Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries - 2,949 albums, equaling 42,405 tracks
  A virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions. The collection provides educators, students, and interested listeners with an unprecedented variety of online resources that support the creation, continuity, and preservation of diverse musical forms.

The help screens are full of useful information about the specific database you are delving into as well as useful tips for searching.  It is possible to search by keyword, browse by genre, labels, people and composers and combine search terms on the "advanced search" screen such as keywords AND limiting by time period.

It is possible to start streaming music using your library card # and PIN immediately.  It is also possible to register for a personal account right in Music Online and create playlists AND share those playlists in different ways!