David Veselenak

Hometown Life

It’s not often the Livonia library director gets a round of applause from a late-night talk show audience. But that’s just what happened in the past week.

The viral video produced by the Livonia library staff to promote the summer reading program was recently featured during a segment on CBS’s “The Late Late Show With James Corden.” The segment, where Corden showed parts of the seven-minute video to his audience, has been seen more than 191,000 times on YouTube, where it was posted May 27.

Library Director Toni LaPorte said someone from Livonia Television found the clip and rushed over to share it with library staff. She said she’s still in shock it reached so far.

Livonia library summer reading video goes viral

“We just couldn't believe it,” she said. “I still have a hard time believing that actually happened.”

In the segment, Corden says he approved of the out-of-the-box approach to encourage youngsters to read during the summer months. Though he questioned whether LaPorte actually did jump off the roof of Livonia City Hall.

“I don’t mean to nitpick, right, but I’m just going to say it: I don’t think that librarian actually jumped off that roof,” Corden said. “I can just see some kid jumping off his roof in the hospital going, ‘I did it because I wanted to be cool. You know, like a librarian.’”

Did LaPorte jump off the roof of city hall? No, but as she said in response to Corden: “What does he know?”

The promo video has been shared across the globe since released last month. Filmed with members of Livonia’s Phoenix Freerunning Academy, it showcased librarian stunt doubles doing parkour throughout the Robert and Janet Bennett Library to secure book recommendations for young patrons.

It’s been viewed more than 30,000 times on Facebook and YouTube since being launched. A set of maps has been put up in the library, with dots showing locations around the world where the video has been shared.

A local television news segment done on the video has been picked up by stations across the country.

“My sister-in-law in Cheboygan saw it on TV there,” LaPorte said. “It got picked up by quite a number of stations.”

Events for the summer reading program begin this weekend and run through the summer. More information can be found at any of the three library branches.

Contact Hometown Life reporter David Veselenak at dveselenak@hometownlife.com, 734-678-6728 or on Twitter: @DavidVeselenak.