Alicia I love this movie so much

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

felice-witch-1 This documentary is extraordinary! Inspiring! Educational in a profound way. Not just about culture and history, but about humanity and our contemporary world with its complexe histories and fast coming future. Somehow, it achieves what I think the New York Public Library sets out to do for all its patrons: Open our minds, our hearts, give us hope and enthusiasm and bring us closer as a human community. I live in Edinburgh but felt so connected to everyone in this film. And without the use of a single interview! I love New York and now I realise that part of the soul of the city lies in this incredible institution. Man it is good to see powerful people who care! And people from all walks of life who care! I commend the filmmaker and the New York Public library for their incredible work. I would work for either in a heartbeat! Thank you thank you thank you for this beautiful documentary.

proud_luddite New York's various library branches are visited in all boroughs in this documentary. It includes various segments highlighting free lectures, job fairs, community gatherings, school classes, help to the needy, and library business meetings.The variety of the segments and their subjects are as well chosen as are the variety of people in each of them. For those of us who love New York and New Yorkers, the people alone make much of this film an enjoyable experience.Many of the lectures were fascinating but some seemed intended for the few with either a higher level of academic intellect and/or a great knowledge of the subject at hand. While this might have been something to overlook, it is harder to overlook the movie's biggest liability: its length of three-and-a-quarter hours. The movie could have been reduced by at least one-third.Though most of the segments were a reasonable length of time, this was not the case for the library staff meetings that were too frequent and too long - much like staff meetings for those of us in our real lives. While some moments in these scenes were interesting, they had a tendency to remind us of the occasional auditory, mental torture of our own lives - something we'd rather forget when watching a movie.

Turfseer Master documentarian Frederick Wiseman's latest offering is a magnum opus on the subject of the New York Public Library. If you can sit through it (as I did), it lasts an almost oppressive 3 hours and 17 minutes. Wiseman's approach is to shoot as much footage as possible and then pare it down to what he obviously regards as something "manageable." I'm not so sure that it's really manageable at all; in reality, Wiseman prefers throwing at us the proverbial "kitchen sink."A great deal of Ex Libris was shot at the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City. But Wiseman also branches out to many of the local branches in the city and gives us a taste of what kind of programs one can find in these neat neighborhood "hot spots."Wiseman's approach is often lugubrious, intent on providing a multiplicity of establishing shots outside each building, before we take a peek inside. He often tarries too long on almost each special event he's covering (I was particularly annoyed by the amount of time spent covering dull board meetings chaired by administrators committed to determining policy designed to shape library offerings in the years to come).Nonetheless, if one is patient enough, there are many interesting things going on behind the scenes at the New York Public Library and Wiseman covers programs and events with aplomb. One of the most impressive offerings is the library's extraordinary picture collection, which is primarily categorized by subject matter. If you're ever in need of an image for a project you're working on, NYPL is the place to go!Wiseman reveals many facets of the vast operation that constitutes the NYPL including librarians wearing headsets, fielding questions over the phone from the public to a conveyor belt that sorts all the returned items automatically.Other fascinating activities include a laptop loaner program, a dance class for seniors, a workshop for sign language theatre interpreters, a speech by the head of the Schomberg Center (for research in Black culture) and an interview with rock star Elvis Costello.Ex Libris is a documentary worth seeing; but I just wish it was an hour shorter.

asesq This is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. It is a seemingly endless series of scenes that are only related in that they take place at the New York public library. There are so many wonderful stories that could be told of the NYPL; it is truly sad that this movie tells none of them.