Pop’s Top 10: Famous Movie Libraries

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Screenshot from Ghostbusters; 1984, Columbia Pictures

Katie and I work in a library (allbeit a unique library), visit libraries (like here, here, here, here, and here), and even craft libraries (here, here, or with flying books!). So when a library shows up in a movie, we of course get all giddy. Recently, we put together a list of our Top 10 famous movie libraries. Number two was a bit of a surprise, and number one? TOTAL CLASSIC.

#10 NATIONAL TREASURE

National Treasure is a campy hoot, packed with forefather name drops and American-ish history. Eventually, our adventurers find themselves in Washington DC in the Library of Congress. They discover a secret hatch in the shelving with a journal inside it, but…total pet peeve here…Nicolas Cage doesn’t shut the hatch after he removes the book. If you’re trying to be all secretive and cover your tracks, SHUT THE SECRET HATCH SO NO ONE ELSE CAN FIND IT! Geez!

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Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

#9 AMERICAN ANIMALS

Based on the true story of a botched rare books heist, American Animals centers around the Transylvania University Library in Lexington, Kentucky. The movie is fascinating, featuring both actor portrayals and interviews with the real life culprits (who all did jail time for the crime). The library featured in the movie, however, was not in Kentucky. It was the E.H. Little Library at Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

#8 PHILADELPHIA

The multiple Academy Award-winning movie Philadelphia stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington as two lawyers fighting AIDS discrimination. A major turning point takes place in the gorgeous Fisher Fine Arts Library at the University of Pennsylvania. Awwww. We love you Philly!

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

#7 LEGALLY BLONDE

What better way to win back an ex-boyfriend then attending Harvard Law School. And what better place to studying for those LSATs then the Pasadena Central Library in Pasadena, California. It’s got palm trees in front, ya’ll!

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

#6 STRANGER THINGS

While technically not a movie, we had to include Stranger Things on this list. Interestingly, the exterior of the library is the Butts County Courthouse in Jackson, Georgia. The interior scenes were shot in a library in East Point, Georgia. Why did a NOT movie make this movie list? This awesome quote from Dustin: ““I am on a curiosity voyage. And I need my paddles to travel. These books… these books are my paddles.”

Photo from Wikipedia

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

#5 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Since we’re stretching the movie list a bit with Stranger Things, we’ll stretch just a BIT further with a library that inspired a movie library. Yes, we’re talking about Disney’s animated Beauty and the Beast, Katie’s favorite, favorite FAVORITE. Belle’s literary wonderland was modeled after the Admont Abbey Library in Admont, Austria.

Admont Abbey Library, Austria

Image courtesy of the Admont Abbey Library, Austria

#4 INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

The exterior of the Chiesa di San Barnaba Library in Venice, Italy was used during filming of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But no, the library does not have stained glass window maps, secret in-floor compartments, or catacombs underneath it. Darn it.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

#3 HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

Of course a Harry Potter movie is on this list! Where else would Hermoine go to find all the answers (or overstudy)? Hogwart’s adopted the Duke Humfrey’s Library, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, England as its sanctum of knowledge.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

#2 THE BREAKFAST CLUB

The 1980s classic The Breakfast Club basically takes place in a library, so it’s close to the top of our list. They movie was filmed in the Maine North High School in Des Plaines, Illinois. But they didn’t use the school library OR shoot scenes in an alternate library. Surprisingly, they built an entire library set inside the high school’s gymnasium! So no, the library was not real. And no, you can’t go and recreate the famed “Detention Dance” scene. Bogus.

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

#1 GHOSTBUSTERS

And the number one spot goes to the New York Public Library in New York City! Woooo!

While this iconic library has appeared in several films (Breakfast at Tiffany’s,13 Going on 30, Spiderman) we would argue that Ghostbusters leads the pack in sheer supernatural awesomeness. And while the NYPL was used for exterior and early scene shots (including the beautiful NYPL reading room photo that started this post), it must be said that the encounter with the fabled “Library Ghost” was actually filmed in the stacks of the Los Angeles Central Library. Life lesson learned: don’t mess with library ghosts. Just don’t.

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Image courtesy of Public Domain Pictures.net

One Two Books

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It’s a story line, an illustration exercise, and an optical illusion all wrapped into one simple project! “One Two Books” is an activity I like to do with kids during illustration and art programs. It’s quick, easy, and fun!

You’ll need:

  • 1 piece of paper
  • Markers and/or pens

To begin, fold a piece of paper in half like a card (I use the heavier stock 9″ x 6″ paper from the inexpensive sketch books Target sells in their office supply section). Label the front of the card with a number 1:

Then open the card and, in the exact same position in the interior, label it with a number 2:

Now decide the story you want to tell. One Two Books only have 2 pages, so I encourage kids to think about a simple action, reaction, or scenario. The younger the artist, the simpler it should be. So here we have a sleeping dog and a grumpy bird on a window sill…hmmm…

Flip open the card for the action…a shouting bird and a shocked, no longer sleeping dog!

One Two Books are a great way to think sequentially, but they are also a terrific way to teach you to think logically and visually. For example, in order for the image to work, the window, rug, and floor line need to occur in the same place on both pages. If color is used, it needs to be consistent between pages. Your characters need to be in somewhat similar orientations or the story won’t make sense. And for the older kids, I show how dialogue or emotive lines adds to the scene (example: the “zzzzz” for the dog on page 1, and its surprised reaction lines on page 2).

The books are also optical illusions! Flip them quickly open and shut to see your characters in motion. Here’s the bird dog story:

And here’s a goldfish story I did with another young illustrator…

The visual action of One Two Books are similar to thaumatropes, which are fantastic optical toys from the Victorian era. Check out this post, which features our awesome Alice in Wonderland thaumatrope project, complete with instructions and printable templates!

thaumatrope demo

Unlike thaumatropes, however, One Two Books allow you more space to create. You can have several action sequences happening on the page at once, for example. Or more elaborate backgrounds. You can have dialogue between two characters as well.

Another interesting storytelling form to try is kamishibai, which originated in Japan. You can find more information about its history and instructions on how to illustrate stories here.

just the cards

There’s also a Japanese version of thaumatropes called tachi-e puppets. You’ll find instructions for those here!

Creating Words (Literally)!

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Mix, pour, and paint…constructing words has never been so hands-on! Today, Katie and her intrepid assistant are test driving the “Perfect Craft” Alphabet Craft Kit by Skullduggery. Intended for children ages 8 and up, this kit allows you to make three-dimensional letters from scratch. Did our letter kit make the grade? Take it away, Katie!

The winner of several awards from Creative Child Magazine, this kit retails on for around $20. It contains 2 two bags of casting mixture, 1 silicone letter mold, 6 small containers of paint, 1 paintbrush, 1 paint sponge, and 1 square of sandpaper. The suggested age range for the kit is 8+, but I feel younger children should definitely have adult assistance, especially when pouring the casting material into the mold. Children who are 10 and older can work on this craft kit on their own.

The instructions tell you to pour ½ cup of water into one of the bags of casting material and mix it together with your hands until it is a “melted ice cream” consistency. The original cast color is white, but you can give it color if you add paint to the mixture. My son and I decided to try and color our casting material orange, so we dropped in some red and yellow paint. Sadly, it did not come out as strong orange as we had hoped.

We debated what word we should create, and finally decided to spell out “Princeton.” However, we soon discovered a problem – there are TWO letter N’s in Princeton! We were going to be one letter short! Happily, we realized we could spell “Cotsen” with the letters we had already poured, and we could spell “Tiger” if we added the letter G. We still had extra casting mixture, so we also poured the letters A, K and Z, which are my son’s and my initials.

One entire bag of casting mixture allowed us to make 13 letters, but be careful! The instructions suggest you fill the letter mold about ¾ full. However, due to the fast pour of the mixture, we sometimes overfilled. As you can see, the final letters E and Z were quite thick!

We waited an hour for the cast to harden and then peeled the letters from the silicone mold. The letters had some crumbly edges that were easily sanded down using the provided sandpaper, but otherwise the letters looked fantastic.

We let the letters to dry overnight before we painted them. The hefty red paintbrush pictured on the front of the box? NOT the one that is included in the packaging! Ours was much much smaller!

The tiny brush really doesn’t provide adequate paint coverage, so I decided to try the kit’s paint sponge and multiple coats. In the photo below, you can see how I used the paint sponge and double coat on the C and S, the paintbrush and double coat for the T and E, and the paintbrush and one coat with the O and N. You can definitely see the color difference between the various methods.

As a final touch, I added a light coat of sparkle paint on all of the letters. Oddly, the sparkle paint removed some of the purple paint from the letter C, but not from any other paint color!

Perfect Craft’s Alphabet Craft Kit is ideal to keep children busy for a couple of hours. Creating and painting the letters was quite entertaining, and clean up was a snap. Once the letters are created, however, there’s not much more to do with the letters. I suppose you can use the letters to practice spelling different words? Or use them for a game of Boggle? Another thought I had would be to mount them onto a wood sign to hang on a child’s bedroom door, or create a family announcement board. Also, once you’re out of the casting mix, you are DONE! So think carefully about what you want to spell!

Final ranking: 3.5 out of 5 stars