I went to see the 12:01 AM showing of \”Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones\”
(or if you are in China, \”Copy People Attack\”) and I was surprised just how much of it
is about Librarianship. Well, okay, it isn\’t about Librarianship, but it really
does raise some interesting issues about customer service and the integrity of archives. If I were a LIS prof, I\’d use
a scene in the film (perhaps risking litigation from Mr. Lucas) to demonstrate how not
to treat patrons.
No spoliers, really, but you\’ll have to click below if you want to read
about it.
P.S. There are things that kind of resemble books in the Jedi Library. They glowed blue, which makes them seem like eBooks, but there were stacks full of them, so I\’m not really sure what to make of it.
I went to see the 12:01 AM showing of \”Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones\”
(or if you are in China, \”Copy People Attack\”) and I was surprised just how much of it
is about Librarianship. Well, okay, it isn\’t about Librarianship, but it really
does raise some interesting issues about customer service and the integrity of archives. If I were a LIS prof, I\’d use
a scene in the film (perhaps risking litigation from Mr. Lucas) to demonstrate how not
to treat patrons.
No spoliers, really, but you\’ll have to click below if you want to read
about it.
P.S. There are things that kind of resemble books in the Jedi Library. They glowed blue, which makes them seem like eBooks, but there were stacks full of them, so I\’m not really sure what to make of it. You may have heard about Jedi Librarian, Jocasta Nu. In \”Attack of the Clones\” she \”helps\” Obi-Wan as a patron.
Having to find the location of a distant planet, he searches the Jedi Archives for its location. However, he doesn\’t find anything on the maps in the vicinity of where the planet should be. Jocasta aproaches him, and conducts a short reference interview. Kanobi explains what info he needs and what attempts he has made to find an answer. At this point Jocasta acts in a highly unprofessioal manner. A bit bratty, she claims that if the archive doesn\’t list it, it doesn\’t exist. Obi-Won proves himself to be an adequate searcher; Jocasta does no more searching then him. Instead, she, in essence, gives up. Obviously they didn\’t have a librarian as a consultant to help write this character. Any librarian worth his weight in Imperial credits wouldn\’t give up so easily. Her total faith in the Jedi Archives is not warrented, evidently, because the planet does exist. It isn\’t in the archives becasue someone has erased the information. Obi-Won leaves an unsatisfied patron.
If *I* were the Jedi Librarian (um, no, I\’ve never thought about this before at all), after being stumped I would have sent a hologram to some expert on geography I knew, or at least consulted another source. Perhaps the total of Jedi knowledge is contained in a single archive. Bad idea. We see what occurs when libraries don\’t have a diverse collection of materials!
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