libraries-in-sff

 

Bibliography

Page history last edited by Anonymous 2 yrs ago

Table of Contents

 


 

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Novels

 

 

 

  • Asimov, Isaac. Foundation trilogy. The characters worked on the "Encyclopedia," intended to preserve all knowledge when civilization would inevitably fall.

 

  • Carr, Josephine. The Dewey Decimal System of Love.

 

 

  • Fforde, Jasper. The Eyre Affair. New York: Viking Penguin, 2001. The first in a series featuring Thursday Next, whose world intersects literature with reality.

 

  • Grossman, Lev. Codex.

 

  • Heinlein, Robert A. Time Enough For Love and later works. The recurring character Justin Foote (actually he's Justin Foote the 45th) is an archivist.

 

  • Kurzweil, Allen. The Grand Complication. New York: Hyperion, 2001.

 

 

 

  • Miller, Keith. The Book of Flying. New York: Riverhead Books, 2004. Pico, the librarian protagonist, goes on a journey to find a pair of wings in order to win the girl he loves.

 

 

  • Millet, Lydia. Oh pure and radiant heart. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2005. A librarian and her husband host a quest by J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, after they are transported to the year 2003; they are horrified at the results of their atomic invention, and seek to redress the wrongs.

 

 

  • Murakami, Haruki. Kafka on the Shore. "Joining the rich literature of runaways, Kafka On The Shore follows the solitary, self-disciplined schoolboy Kafka Tamura as he hops a bus from Tokyo to the randomly chosen town of Takamatsu, reminding himself at each step that he has to be "the world¹s toughest fifteen-year-old." He finds a secluded private library in which to spend his days--continuing his impressive self-education--and is befriended by a clerk and the mysteriously remote head librarian, Miss Saeki, whom he fantasizes may be his long-lost mother. Meanwhile, in a second, wilder narrative spiral, an elderly Tokyo man named Nakata veers from his calm routine by murdering a stranger. An unforgettable character, beautifully delineated by Murakami, Nakata can speak with cats but cannot read or write, nor explain the forces drawing him toward Takamatsu and the other characters."

 

  • Nix, Garth. Lirael. (2001). New York: Harper Collins.

 

 

  • Piper, H. Beam. Four Day Planet. (1961). New York: Putnam. While not about the library in particular, there is a unique discussion of the role of the library in the educational process.

 

  • Pratchett, Terry. The Colour of Magic (1983). New York: St. Martin's Press. In this and other volumes in the Discworld series, the Librarian of the Unseen University is a recurring character.

 

  • Scott, Melissa. Mighty Good Road, Night sky mine, others. A look at a future society with information technology on the cutting edge and information as a commodity.

 

 

  • Truman, Margaret. Murder at the Library of Congress.

 

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Short Stories

 

 

 

  • Lerner, Fred. "Rosetta Stone" (Artemis, Winter 2000; reprinted in Year's Best SF #5). Described by anthologist David G. Hartwell as "the only SF story I know in which the science is library science."

 

 

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Media

 

  • Day after tomorrow (2004). People take refuge in the library (New York Public?), and after an argument about burning books by Nietzsche, a boy states "Yeah, we got a whole section on tax laws down here we can burn." P.S. - the Gutenberg bible is always TWO volumes.

 

  • Desk Set. 1957, with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. She is the newspaper librarian, and he is trying to replace her with a computer.

 

  • GhostbustersI, part 1, the opening sequence in the New York Public Library.

 

  • The Librarian. Noah Wylie.

 

  • Logan's Run (1976). The runners get to the surface and find the ruins of the Library of Congress, where they meet a mad Peter Ustinov, who explains to them what a library is, and what books are.

 

  • Mr. Atoz, All Our Yesterdays. Star Trek: the original series.

 

  • The Mummy (1999). Rachel Weisz's disaster in the Museum's library, and her charming "I'm PROUD to be ... a librarian!"

 

  • Time Enough At Last. Twilight Zone, starring Burgess Meredith (whose character is not a librarian, but should have been one instead of a bookkeeper)

 

  • League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Both M and Dorian Gray were encountered in their libraries.

 

  • National Treasure. The main character has to break into the National Archives.

 

 

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Comics

 

  • Unshelved A daily comic strip set in the Mallville Public Library. One of the creators of the strip works in a public library. The Sunday "book talk" strip frequently features a fantasy or science fiction title.

 

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Libraries of the Past

 

 

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Libraries of the Future

 

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Books About Books About Libraries and Librarians

 

  • Burns, Grant. Librarians in Fiction: A Critical Bibliography. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. 1998.

 

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Websites

 

 

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Other Resources

 

 

  • Books In Print.

 

  • Fiction Catalog.

 

  • Library of Congress. catalog.loc.gov (no www) provides simple or complex searching, including fictitious characters! authorities.loc.gov lists authors' names, and their pseudonyms.

 

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