Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 219

Yesterday, I briefly tapped into how my chosen profession of librarianship lead to my Ann Dvorak book having a finely crafted index. As I was writing that post, I started to think about how being a librarian aided my Ann-D research in general.

I first conceived of writing a book on Ann back in 1997 or ’98 and for the next few years, my research mainly consisted of collecting memorabilia on Ann and her films. I started researching in earnest around 2003, after I enrolled in graduate school to earn my MLIS and had learned some of the finer points of information retrieval. Once I actually became a librarian in 2005, the research really took off and didn’t slow down until last year as I was finishing up the writing.

There are a few obvious reasons why being a librarian can be an advantage. It’s my job to know where to find information and to provide access to it. The library I work at subscribes to databases with digitized historical newspapers, genealogical information, biographical resources, and Sanborn Maps, all of which I used extensively while researching Ann, but I became familiar with these resources because it’s what  I am paid to do. I am also supposed to know about “traditional” research sources like print indexes and what neighboring institutions have relevant collections.

Being a librarian in the know is great, but I was also at an extreme advantage because I work at Central Library which has deep collections relating to Los Angeles history. Before I ever worked there, a regular patron would come in and pull microfilm for every Los Angeles area newspaper, of which there were many in the 1920s-1950s. This fella would look at every issue and create indexes of films actors which he then sold to researchers. Amazingly, he compiled an index on Ann Dvorak, which a friend of mine had and gave me a copy of. When I first saw it, I had no clue what the cryptic abbreviations stood for. EHE, LAX, HCN, LAR meant nothing to me, so I filed this index away. It took me about two days of working at Central Library to realize I had a key to unlock the contents of the Evening Herald and Express, Los Angeles Examiner, Hollywood Citizen News, and Los Angeles Record – newspapers from Ann’s time which still have not been digitized. For the first six months I worked At Central, I spent every lunch hour on the microfilm machines, looking at each and every last entry in that index, which is something I may not have taken the time to do otherwise.

Working at a place with amazing collections also afforded me the ability to wander up to the Literature Department where the biographies of film actors are (don’t ask) and just browse, looking for books on Ann’s co-stars. If I found a reference indexed in Google books, but not scanned, I could usually find the actual book in our collections. I once spent my lunch breaks for a few weeks browsing the Highland Park Herald newspaper, just because Ann went to private school there. I found a couple of useful things doing that. Accessing old periodicals for film reviews – not a problem. Figure out a new lead? The materials were usually at my fingertips. In need of images of Ann fighting Warner Bros. in court or getting a divorce? Bingo! I am fairly certain that if I did not have such easy access to all these materials, I would not have dug so deep.

Another advantage to being a librarian is that if there was something I did not know, there was usually a colleague who did. A librarian in the department with the legal collection helped me dig up a case relating to Ann and her third husband which went to the California Court of Appeals. He also helped me figure out the whereabouts of their lawyer who I contacted and interviewed for the book. Another librarian in the Business Department helped me get the filing documents for a company Ann and her third husband ran. Had I not worked with these talented people, I may not have even known these materials existed.

Then there are all the fantastic people I came across while working at a public desk. It was a patron who turned me on to Scrivener, the software I used to write the Dvorak book, which was a vital tool. Another fellow posted about Ann on a message board on my behalf, which led to the discovery that a British short she made during the War still existed. One of the editors of Los Angeles Magazine  regularly taps into our librarian brains for various stories. When they put together a cinema issue, he was impressed enough with my Ann Dvorak obsession that Ann and I got the double page spread posted above, which is probably the best photo that will ever be taken of me.

While being a librarian enabled me to do a hell of a lot of deep Ann Dvorak research, I also owe a debt to Ann. The amount of research I have done to uncover the life of Ann and her parents has in turn made me an excellent librarian.