The Librarians

Interview with Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope, Co-creators - The Librarians 

Gristmill holds all rights to the photographs and grants the ALA permission to reproduce these images without limitation.

For readers who have yet to see the show, The Librarians, how would you describe it?

The Librarians is a comedy about dysfunctional human behavior, which takes place - not surprisingly - in a library. The show revolves around Frances O’Brien, the passive aggressive and intolerant Head Librarian of the (fictional) Middleton Interactive Learning Centre, a large, modern library in the outer suburbs. Although Frances loves being in charge, she would prefer to be in charge of a library that was in a more salubrious and less multi-cultural suburb.

The show premiered in October 2007, and ran for 3 seasons. How did it come about?

We created The Librarians during the last term of a long reign of an Australian conservative government. (You had George Bush; we had John Howard). Increasingly, the Howard government began using fear tactics as their primary MO for staying in power and, as a consequence, ordinary Australians began to believe the xenophobic, tea-partyish nonsense and became very harsh and intolerant towards everything ‘other’. Frances O’Brien is an excellently foolish representation of that intolerance.

What is your role with the show besides co-creator?

Robyn Butler: writer, producer and I play Frances O’Brien. Wayne Hope: writer, director, producer and I play Terry O’Brien. Robyn and Wayne are married in real life and, unlike Frances and Terry, they really like each other.

Is there any significance to the show being set in a library?

We thought a library was a wonderful starting point as, in Australia, it’s just about the last free space and everyone is welcome. Our real-life local library, although in the inner-city, like Middleton, is a social melting pot: gentrified, yuppie types take their kids for story time, a large Hasidic Jewish community, old people who just like to sit in the library because it’s warm, or cool, and there are people around, lots of international back packers and, what’s called here, ‘Housing Commission’ tenants, people who live in government housing because they’re poor, who use the library a lot. And, of course, we have the usual university students, nerds and bookish types. When you’re trying to create a show about tolerance and difference, the public library seems like the ideal backdrop. We decided to move our television library to the outer suburbs to capture as much difference as we possibly could. In Australia, there is significant money spent on these libraries and they are often spectacular in both their design and their effectiveness as community spaces. They clearly don’t have Frances running them.

Where do you or any of the other writers/actors get their inspiration for the librarian characters they play?

We can happily report that no librarians were harmed during the filming of our show. Although we have been ably assisted by real-life librarians throughout filming, we created the characters firstly as dysfunctional people, not dysfunctional librarians.

First and foremost, we thought that making Frances O’Brien a passive aggressive, bigoted control freak was a funny idea – particularly for a female character. Then we thought it would be funny to put her in charge of a library. A library requires control and order, the very qualities that are always threatening to get away from Frances. A modern library houses such social and technological versatility and Frances houses none. We then created our other characters to specifically annoy Frances, who as well as being racist is a repressed Catholic with an uptight and out of date moral code. Hence, our library staff includes a gay Malaysian, a paraplegic, a (highly competent) Muslim woman, a pretentious English poet, a hot children’s librarian and an ex-thief doing Prison Community Service. This is not to poke fun at any of these characters’ conditions/backgrounds, but to highlight Frances’ attitude towards them. Having said that, just like life, we try to make everyone a bit flawed.

Are there any "real" librarians who assist with the show and if so in what way?  Is the show set in a real library and are any of the materials used from libraries?

We film on a set that we build to look like a real library, that looks so much like a real library that people have sometimes wandered in and tried to borrow a book. Seriously. We have a brilliant art department. We have had a fantastic network of support here in Australia through the Australian Library and Information Association and through the course of filming they have sent messages out for help with stuff we need. The shelves, books, trolleys, posters, scanners, old school catalogues – have all come from real libraries.

Librarians love our show as much as we love librarians, so much so, that in the final episode of season two, the crowd at the librarian-of-the-year awards are FIFTY ACTUAL LIBRARIANS. They were the noisiest people we’ve ever had on set, ever.

Where does the show get its information about libraries?

Spying and stalking mainly. Also, we had the art department taken on tours in several libraries to see how they were all set up. Prior to shooting, we took the cast on a field trip to a library where some extremely kind librarians let them do a bit of work experience. Then the librarians asked the actors to not give up their day job. We have heard that some hard line librarians get a little testy at the occasional lack of procedure they witness on the show, at which point we like to remind people that it’s not a documentary…

Any "real life" library stories that you or any of the other writers or cast want to share with readers?

There is a scene in the first season where a library user takes a fish out of her bag and wraps it up in a library owned newspaper. THAT LITERALLY HAPPENED. Wayne and I were sitting at the communal table where the daily newspapers are kept at our local library, when an old woman came in, sat down and spread out The Age (our broadsheet) in front of her. Then, she took a fish out of her bag and wrapped it up. Then she left. One of the funniest things we’ve ever seen.

Besides the website http://www.abc.net.au/tv/librarians/#/information, how should readers best contact you or the show?

We have a facebook page and our own website.

The ended after 3 seasons so Wayne and Robyn could work on a new television comedy series, fans can still find episodes on Hulu.