Book cart dancing brings fame
By NORA SORENA CASEY Special to the Daily Press
MAIN LIBRARY With a winning combination of moon-walks, steaming potions, mad scientist attire, and synchronized book cart dancing, the local library’s Book Cart Drill Team took first place in the Library Book Cart Drill Team World Championship held in June.
This was the fourth year of the competition, and the first time the Santa Monica Public Library has competed. Eight teams from across the country participated in the event, which consisted of pushing book carts (normally used in the library for holding books to re-shelve) in a choreographed musical routine.
In addition to musical moves, teams assembled costumes and decorated their carts to make each performance tell a story. Judges graded each routine for its artistic creativity and technical precision.
The Santa Monica team, named the Well- Stacked Sci-brarians, used music from “Weird Science,” “Somebody is Watching” and “Thriller”to act out how a group of mad scientists’ potions turn some of them into zombies. Those zombies then attack the remaining scientists, who also become zombies for a few final minutes of moon-walking, claw-shaking “Thriller” dancing.
“Everybody is thinking of the old stereotypes, that a librarian is an old woman with a bun and glasses shushing people,” said Deidre Ross, director of Conference Services for the American Library Association (ALA). “Librarians aren’t like that anymore. They’re fun.”
Ross was inspired to create the competition as a part of the ALA’s annual conference after reading a book about book cart drill teams. Previously, the teams performed in community parades as a way to gain publicity, interact with the community, and break down the negative stereotypes that librarians are often associated with.
“The purpose was to promote libraries and break the stereotype, and at the time I thought ‘whatever,’” said Norma Angel, one of the Sci-brarians.“But it made a big difference.”
The performance has certainly put the Santa Monica team on the map. There were approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people at the conference. At least six videos feature the performance on YouTube with anywhere from 21 to 945 views.
“It was a big hit, people were cheering,” said Ross.
The team’s hard work also paid off at home. In addition to bringing home a gold book cart, the first place prize, working together for the routine helped build friendships.
“It was one of those opportunities for people to forge new relationships in different ways you don’t get to do in the library,” said Shawna Johnson, another Sci-brarian.
The 10 team members came from different sections of the library.
“A call was sent out across the library saying, you know, if you want fame and fortune,” said Johnson, laughing.“We were like: We’re fun people, why not?”
The team members then met twice a week for roughly two hours for two months to rehearse. In true librarian fashion, they also did a lot of research on their props and costumes.
“We all had to take one of those book carts, speakers, dry ice, we threw candy at the end,” said Sci-brarian Donnae Tidwell. “We all learned how much it takes to put together.”
Outside of rehearsal time they experimented with potions that would look cool and compared prices on lab coats, wigs and blood capsules to be used in the performance. They agreed that the preparation was exhausting, but the end result was worth it.
“Everyone enjoyed it, you would have thought we won the Noble Peace Prize,” said Angel. “The other staff are excited to have this title.”
The ALA will have another competition next year, but the Santa Monica team is still recovering, and are not yet sure if they will venture to Chicago’s conference to defend the title.
For now they will continue to work as librarians rather than synchronized-dancing-scientist-zombies, but the golden book cart will remain a testament to their potential.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 5, 2008. Read the original PDF.