At one time, Tombrarian was both a personal and a professional blog before I decided to split my efforts into two blogs back in 2008. I am thinking I want to return to the one blog format and feel that Being and Formulating is the best venue for that.

At one time, Tombrarian was a professional blog with some personal things thrown in and I now envision Being and Formulating becoming a personal blog with some library stuff thrown in. Frankly, the longer I’ve been in this field, the harder it becomes to separate the two lives.

I will never say never when it comes to Tombrarian, but for the foreseable future, I will be putting my efforts into Being and Formulating. But Tombrarian will live on in spirit and you can follow the Being and Formulating fan page or the blog proper.

The PLA site has a great list of restaurant recommendations, which includes plenty of places to keep people well-fed during the conference, but I am so enthusiastic about the restaurant scene in Philly that I can’t help but supplement the list with some of my local favorites (listed in distance from the Convention Center).

One note about the PLA list: a couple of the restaurants have since closed, including Ted’s Montana Grill and Le Bec Fin. Horizons also is closed and the owners have opened Vedge, which I haven’t been to, but it is a vegan restaurant getting rave reviews.

In Reading Terminal Market (.1 mi):

• DiNic’s
• Beck’s Cajun Cafe
• Dutch Eating Place
• Rib Stand
• By George! Pizza, Pasta & Cheesesteaks
• 12th Street Cantina
• Old City Coffee

Within a mile:

• Rangoon Burmese Restaurant (.2 mi)
• Ray’s Coffee and Tea House (.3 mi)
• Caribou Cafe (.4 mi)
• The Farmers’ Cabinet (.4 mi)
• Vintage Wine Bar (.5 mi)
• Tria (.6 mi)
• Fish (.6 mi)
• Tenth Street Pourhouse (.6 mi)
• Varga Bar (.6 mi)
• Elixr Coffee (.7 mi)
• Good Dog Bar and Restaurant (.8 mi)
• Farmicia (.8 mi)
• Monk’s Cafe (.9 mi)
• The Dandelion Pub (.9 mi)
• Ristorante Panorama (1.0 mi)
• Eulogy Belgian Tavern (1.0 mi)
• Khyber Pass Pub (1.0 mi)

Within 1 to 2 miles:

• C19 (1.1 mi)
• Jet Wine Bar (1.1 mi)
• Rex 1516 (1.1 mi)
• Meritage Restaurant & Wine Bar (1.4)
• Xochitl (1.4 mi)
• Standard Tap (1.6 mi)
• The Sidecar Bar & Grille (1.9 mi)

I hope this helps and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask either in the comments or via email.

It is also good timing for me because I have just finished my tenure on American Library Association’s Notable Videos for Adults Committee. I have devoted most of my blog posts to reviews of films that I screened for that group and have been thinking I need to reinvigorate Tombrarian and get back to posting other things as well and feel like the Library Day in the Life Project is a great opportunity to jump start some new ideas for this blog.

For those who don’t know, the Library Day in the Life Project was started by my friend and professional colleague, Bobbi Newman, back in 2008 in response to discovering that someone had found her blog, Librarian by Day, by searching for “What’s a librarian’s day like?” She started this project to let the library community answer that question, providing library students, patrons, other librarians and whomever a resource for understanding what it is librarians do. Library Day in the Life has become a valuable, high profile project that really enhances the profession. Bobbi explains the project:

People participate by sharing a day or week by writing blog posts, tweeting, creating videos and taking pictures. Last round there were just under 250 people signed up on the wiki. There were over 800 people participating via Twitter.  It has grown to be an international project with participants from the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, France, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and Singapore. Participants are from academic, public, college, special, school libraries, professional organizations and library vendors.

I have participated twice in the past, in the first two years: 2008 and 2009. You can find out more and see who all is participating at this year’s project page.

As you can tell from the title of this post, I have opted to not do a daily update but write a post highlighting some things I’ve worked on for the week. I’m far too busy and/or lazy to chronicle things day-by-day.

So, some highlights:

• I have recently returned from the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference which was held in Dallas, TX. Mainly, I was there to perform some committee work. I am the Chair of the Video Round Table and, as I mentioned above, serve on the Notable Videos for Adults Committee. This week, I had to follow-up with some of that committee work, contacting a couple of people who volunteered to serve on the round table, submitted requests for meeting rooms for the annual conference in Anaheim in June, and worked with our web committee to post the results of the Notable Videos Committee, which screens nominated documentary films throughout the year and then meets to compile a short list of recommended films.
• Dove into a project for revising the resource guides associated with the college I serve. Since there was no one in my position for several months, the guides were overdue for some maintenance. I need to make some changes, fix broken links, and clean up the code (those who know me know that I’m ALL about clean code).
• Set-up a blog and twitter account for communicating with the college.
• Assmebled a slide show of pictures of libraries I have visited and shared them at a space planning meeting.
• Met with co-worker to discuss possibly collaborating on an article.
• Met with a student contemplating library school.
• Met with representative to analyze the book approval plan that had been established prior to my hire. Suggested some refinements but also need to take a close look to ensure that the plan is meeting current needs.
• Attended a meeting to provide feedback on a video search interface that would allow more convenient online browsing of our VHS and DVD holdings.
• Began testing library services and resources on the iPad.
• Worked 4 hours on the reference desk and 3 hours of reference chat.

The year listed is the year the films were nominated, not the release year.

• About a Son (2009)
• Beautiful Losers (2011)
• Cats of Mirikitani (2009)
• A Film Unfinished (2012)
• Herb & Dorothy (2011)
• In Search of Memory (2010)
• Lake of Fire (2010)
• Marwencol (2011)
• Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2011)
• Sharkwater (2009)
• To See If I’m Smiling (2009)
• Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma (2010)
• Trouble the Water (2010)
• Waltz with Bashir (2010)
• What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann (2009)

As usual, I’m pretty happy with the list. There are always one or two films that don’t make the cut that I wish had, but that’s the nature of such lists.

So, in alphabetical order, the list:

• Battle for Brooklyn
• Better This World
• Bonecrusher
• Catfish
• A Film Unfinished
• The Flaw
• Freedom Riders
• Hot Coffee
• Jaffa: The Orange’s Clockwork
• The Labyrinth: The Testimony of Marian Kolodziej
• Mugabe and the White African
• Neshoba: The Price of Freedom
• Price of Sex
• A Small Act
• War, Love, God and Madness

Many of the staged scenes creates a portrait of life that hid much of the deprevation of the ghetto. The Jewish captives were shown to be better dressed, better fed, and more content than was the case. They were also forced to appear uncaring and cold toward the poorer population. These staged scenes could have served as propeganda to make the camps seem not as cruel to the outside world and to cast the character of the Jews in an unflattering light. However, much of the raw footage did indeed capture the true deprevation of the ghetto raising the question as to why the Nazis would want the true nature of the camps to be exposed.

A Film Unfinsihed presents much of the raw footage and the alternate takes as it creates a mesmerizing narrative about the discovery of the films and of the process of the filmmaking.

This straight-forward legal battle was, of course, complicated by a subtext of racial tension because Mugabe was redistributing land only owned by white farmers. The story is further complicated by the long history of colonialism. Although Campbell obtained his land legally, his farm was resented by many in the community. The tale is even further complicated by the accusation that Mugabe was not actually redistributing land to poor farmers but to his cronies.

It could be easy to assume Mugabe and the White African is the tale of a white Englishman who faced reverse racism. But the film is much more than that as it raises many issues that are too complex to resolve. However, it’s hard to say whether or not this strategy works in favor of the film. The main focus is on Campell, his son-in-law and his son-in-law’s parents in England. There is some footage of Mugabe’s legal team and the men trying to occupy the farm. Oddly, the film does not present any interviews with any of the black farm workers whose insights could have gone a long way to providing some context for the racial issues.

The film also provides unique insight into the fall of Communism which led to the harsh economic climate that made these women vulnerable to the tactics of the traffickers. Often, Chakarova laments how things were better under Communism and takes the viewer to her all but abandoned hometown.

The first half of the film focuses on the initial tragedy and legal battle. The second half revolves around Charlene’s continuing advocacy and the stories of other people who faced similar discrimination.

Despite the importance of the issues raised and Charlene’s emotional story, For My Wife is not consistently engaging. Even with a relatively short 60 minute running time, the film drags in spots and is a bit repetitive.