Dave Cullen Goal: 2,000 DVDs in Rural Libraries

[Lynne]

"Building on the attention for its unprecedented ad in the March 10 Daily Variety, a website discussion board has launched an ambitious campaign to place the Brokeback Mountain DVD in 2,000 rural libraries in the United States and Canada. The campaign will also extend abroad, particularly targeting countries like the Bahamas, where the film has been banned. This is the first in a series of projects to be launched by The Ultimate Brokeback Forum. “The ad campaign ignited a wealth of enthusiasm to make a difference. It has been an incredible outpouring of Internet activism, and it is all due to Brokeback Mountain” said site organizer, Dave Cullen."

http://www.moviecitynews.com/Notepad/2006/060403_pr.html

[montferrat]

This is a really fascinating article Lynne. I can't beleieve how pro-active the Dave Cullen members have been. It's amazing that all this comes from people being touched by this movie.

just stunned...

[Lynne]

It's amazing that all this comes from people being touched by this movie.

It's truly amazing the way it's brought such a diverse group of people together harmoniously.  And Dave Cullen's goal is a worthy goal....I think we need such a goal here - not in the interest of competing as much as contributing.  There's an enormous amount of talent and ingenuity here.

Thanks for checking out this forum, Paul!

-Lynne

[Aussie Chris]

It's truly amazing the way it's brought such a diverse group of people together harmoniously.  And Dave Cullen's goal is a worthy goal....I think we need such a goal here - not in the interest of competing as much as contributing.  There's an enormous amount of talent and ingenuity here.

I agree Lynne, though Dave Cullen's group has considerable numbers and financial resources, we have equal portions of smarts and good intentions.

In the meantime, I think I'll dust off my Dave Cullen membership and check out what they're doing - I take it they could use some more donations?

[starboardlight]

yes, i saw that posted on IMDB as well. I just copied it to the Tremblay board, before seeing your post. I love that they are doing this. And I applaud everyone here that contributed to their previous effort and any one who'll be contributing to this current effort.

[TJ]

I think that what the members of the davecullen.com forum are doing is great.

I talked to one of the librarians in the Tulsa (Oklahoma) City-County Library System at the main, Central, branch downtown and he told me on that day all of the DVDs that were being processed, at least 10, were paid for out of library funds.

If I weren't dirt-farmer poor and on fixed SS income supplemented by a VA pension, I would like to purchase one for the nearest library branch just off of S. Peoria Ave. here in western South-Central Tulsa. They did not have one listed to be located at that branch the last time I looked.

I have been a member of the davecullen.com forum but I have had problems with city folks there who think they know more about us country folks in the the Southwest than we do ourselves. I grew up around real cowboys and even personally knew, "Doc' Payne, one of the Cherokee cowboys who rode the range with Will Rogers when they were both teenagers.

[Lynne]

To honor the recent generosity of DCLuke (of The Ultimate Brokeback Forum) in sharing his experience of meeting Annie Proulx with us, I would like to give some extra visibility to their campaign to place DVDs in rural libraries.

From what I have been able to glean, around 600 DVDs have been placed so far, but donations seem to be slowing.

Here is a current link if you feel inclined to contribute:

http://www.davecullen.com/brokebackmountain/adcampaign.html

Thanks,
Lynne

[Shakesthecoffecan]

How about the story itself?

Are these libraries that are receiving the DVD, also carrying "Close Range: Wyoming stories"? Or Brokeback Mountain in print form? The story is just as important as the film. I find myself spending more time with it these days than the film.

[nakymaton]

Hi, shakestheground -

I don't know about all the libraries, but the ones I checked out all had the story in some collection or another (in Close Range, in a collection of short stories edited by Larry McMurtry, or as the stand-alone book). I think a number of people were offering copies of the book to libraries that didn't have DVD collections, too.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Good Deal.

[starboardlight]

you know, Blockbuster and other rental places are selling their "previously viewed" dvds for cheaper. Maybe we can buy these for placing in even more libraries. I believe Netflix has them for $10.

[Marge_Innavera]

Now's a good time to buy an extra copy of the DVD: our two Blockbusters in the south KC suburb where I work (the nearest part of Kansas City to us) have only a few left but they are charging between $7 and $11 per copy.  The down side, well just for me I guess, is that I want a full screen copy to compare with the wide screen one I already have and all their copies are wide screen.

The Dave Cullen forum's project has placed about 700 DVDs so far, and some participants did quite a lot of calling to small towns and especially to the states where we hadn't placed any yet. There was one nasty dustup when a library staffer in Oklahoma made a sick joke about how their local cowboys would "drag [Ennis and Jack] through the sagebrush and cactus and leave them for the coyotes." (an approximate quote) The library later apologized.

My own resources are limited but I managed to place three copies, two of which I paid for and one from the generous number that DCLuke donated. They were all three to college libraries. If anyone had told me ahead of time how rewarding that was, I wouldn't have believed it, especially when I got acknowledgement letters from the libraries.

According to the participants, most libraries were actually very positive. And with some that declined, the reasons had nothing to do with opposition to the film. There are some libraries that don't carry anything behond PG-rated stuff, others that only deal with documentaries and subjects of local interest and a few that don't carry movies that are available in major outlets like Blockbuster. Our own local library doesn't even carry DVDs as yet, although the regional library system it's part of did add Brokeback to their collection just last month.