Fighting evil in the library stacks


When I was reading Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, I was struck by the thought of the books that feature librarians as brave heroes.

I have to admit that I have a very soft place in my heart for libraries and the clerks and professionals who work in them. I worked in the Business Library at University of Iowa as an undergraduate student, and was very interested in pursuing a career in library science when I received an offer in 1996 from my current employer. In fact, the Papal Consort and I went together to the University of Texas MLS department to review the offerings and course structure. (I like that it is a non-thesis graduate program! :)

So, I came up with a short list of my favorite books where librarians put themselves at risk and save the world with their information retrieval skills!
1) The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
2) Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
3) The Time Traveller's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger

In doing a little quick research on this topic, I came across a great short article about other action figures in libraries... Characters that I hadn't thought of:
- Batgirl
- Rupert Giles, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I know this has to be a woefully incomplete list, but do you have any favorites you want to call out?

Posted: Wed - October 31, 2007 at 09:10 AM        

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