{"id":84155,"date":"2014-11-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=84155"},"modified":"2014-11-13T10:44:35","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:44:35","slug":"my-favorite-fictional-heroic-librarians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=84155","title":{"rendered":"My Favorite Fictional Heroic Librarians"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Tracy Wasserman, Senior Assistant, INALJ Florida<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

My Favorite Fictional Heroic Librarians<\/span><\/h3>\n

Who doesn\u2019t love a great story featuring a heroic librarian? TV shows, books, and movies have\u00a0portrayed many librarians as not only heroic, but intelligent, industrious and doggedly stubborn.\u00a0Librarians are a diverse bunch, and the world should know it! One thing they all have in common? They\u00a0care about YOU! Yes, that\u2019s right. These are caring librarians. What other profession has so many good\u00a0vibes in fiction? Here\u2019s my list of favorites:<\/p>\n

\"the-music-man\"<\/a>Photo credit: Flickr Commons photo<\/a><\/p>\n

1. The Music Man (where librarians are exceedingly brave and\u00a0extremely intelligent):<\/strong> This 1962 musical film written by Robert\u00a0Meredith Wilson stars Shirley Jones as Marian Paroo, the librarian\u00a0of River City, Iowa. She\u2019s outspoken and brave, standing up to\u00a0censorship and the closed-mindedness of Iowa country folk. She\u00a0converts a con artist\/ traveling musical instrument salesman to honesty, winning his respect and\u00a0affection, thereby pleasing her mother, who fears Marion\u2019s superior intelligence will doom her to a life\u00a0of spinsterhood. What librarian can\u2019t help but be amused by this lyrical exchange between Marian and\u00a0her mother:<\/p>\n

Marian: Mama, a man with a suitcase followed me home.
\nMrs. Paroo: Oh–Who?
\nMarian: I never saw him before.
\nMrs. Paroo: Did he say anything?
\nMarian: He tried.
\nMrs. Paroo: Did you say anything?
\nMarian: Of course not, Mama!
\nMrs. Paroo: If you don’t mind my saying so, it wouldn’t have hurt you to find out what the gentleman\u00a0wanted.
\nMarian: I know what the gentleman wanted.
\nMrs. Paroo: What, dear?
\nMarian: You’ll find it in Balzac.
\nMrs. Paroo: Excuse me for living but I never read it.
\nMarian: Neither has anyone else in this town.
\nMrs. Paroo: There you go again with the same old comment about the low mentality of River City\u00a0people, and takin’ it all to much to heart.
\nMarian: Now, Mama, as long as the Madison Public Library was entrusted to me for the purpose of\u00a0improving River City’s cultural level, I can’t help my concern that the Ladies of River City keep ignoring all\u00a0my council and advice.
\nMrs. Paroo: But, darlin’–when a woman has a husband and you’ve got none, why should she take advice\u00a0from you? Even if you can quote Balzac and Shakespeare and all them other highfalutin’ Greeks.<\/p>\n

\"mr.atoz\"<\/a>Photo credit: Flickr Commons photo<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Star Trek, Espisode \u201cAll Our Yesterdays\u201d (where librarians\u00a0are fearlessly efficient and nobly selfless):<\/strong> Remember the sci fi\u00a0cult classic TV series starring William Shatner as Captain Kirk\u00a0and Leonard Nemoy as Mr. Spock, from which multiple spin-\u00a0offs have sprung? Well, Mr. Atoz, a librarian on the planet\u00a0Sarpiedon (get it \u2013 Mr. A to Z), turns out to be a selfless (albeit,\u00a0misguided) hero of the episode, \u201cAll Our Yesterdays,\u201d which\u00a0first aired on March 14, 1969. Like any good librarian, Mr. Atoz\u00a0keeps well stock shelves of reference material of his planet\u2019s history, which he has uses to help the\u00a0inhabitants of Sarpeidon escape the death of their sun by transporting them through a time portal into\u00a0a past time period of their choosing. He has remained on the planet as the last inhabitant, first making\u00a0sure (with the help of his android \u201creplica\u201d librarians) that everyone else has safely escaped before\u00a0joining his own family in their chosen time period:<\/p>\n

ATOZ: May I help you? I am the librarian. May I be of assistance?
\nKIRK: Perhaps you can, Mister . . ?
\nATOZ: Mister Atoz. I confess that I’m a little surprised to see you. I had thought that everyone had long\u00a0since gone. But the surprise is pleasant one. After all, a library serves no purpose unless someone is\u00a0using it.
\nKIRK: You say everyone is gone? Where’d they go?
\nATOZ: It depended on the individual, of course. If you wish to trace a specific person, I’m sorry, but that\u00a0information is confidential.
\n.*****
\nSPOCK: Forgive me, sir. It is my fault. I must have miscalculated. Our readings indicated that there was\u00a0no one here at all.
\nATOZ: Of course I know. Everyone on this planet was warned of the coming nova long ago. They\u00a0followed instructions and are now safe. And you had better do the same.
\nKIRK: Did you say they were safe?
\nATOZ: Absolutely. Every single one.
\nKIRK: Where did they go?
\nATOZ: Wherever they wanted to go, of course. It is strictly up to the individual’s choice.
\nKIRK: I see. And you personally sent all these people on the planet to safety?
\nATOZ: Yes, yes, yes. They are all gone, except you three. Of course, I had to delegate the simple tasks to\u00a0my replicas.
\nKIRK: You are the real one, Mister Atoz?
\nKIRK: Of course. I am the real Mister Atoz.
\nMCCOY: As a matter of fact, he’s quite real, Jim.
\nKIRK: Let us take you with us to a place of safety.
\nATOZ: No, thank you. I plan to join my wife and family when the time comes. Now, don’t be concerned\u00a0about me. Think of yourselves. I warn you most urgently. Make your escape before it’s too late. The\u00a0library is at your complete service. I will gladly supply you with all reference material to help you. History\u00a0of the planet is available in every detail. Just choose what interests you the most. The millennium, the\u00a0century, the date, the moment. The library is your key.<\/p>\n

\"shawshank-redemption\"<\/a>Photo credit: Flickr Commons photo<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption (where\u00a0librarians are quietly industrious and dauntlessly\u00a0determined):<\/strong> Stephen King, the horror novelist, wrote this\u00a01982 novella that was made into a movie entitled The\u00a0Shawshank Redemption in 1994 starring Tim Robbins and\u00a0Morgan Freeman (nominated for seven Academy Awards).\u00a0Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a banker falsely accused of\u00a0murder and sent to Shawshank Prison for life, where he turns\u00a0his hard-working mentality into running the prison library and\u00a0winning the respect of both his fellow inmates and the prison guards. As the prison librarian, he wages a\u00a0tireless letter-writing campaign to the state legislature for funds to expand the library with material to\u00a0help many fellow prisoners obtain high school equivalency diplomas. Andy is a hero, and you have a\u00a0definite feel-good vibe when he successfully escapes from prison after 27 years of incarceration.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet\u00a0and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you.\u00a0And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the\u00a0place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2015 Stephen King<\/a>, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption: A Story from Different Seasons<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ouat-belle-remus\"<\/a>Image quote: \u201dWe\u2019ve all got both light and dark inside us. What\u00a0matters is the part we choose to act on. That\u2019s who we really are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo credit : Flickr Commons photo<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Once Upon a Time (where librarians are unfailingly loyal and\u00a0impossibly nice):<\/strong> This currently running fantasy-drama TV series in\u00a0its fourth season (check it out Sunday nights on ABC) features as one\u00a0of its main characters, Belle, played by actress Emilie de Ravin, the\u00a0fairy-tale character from Disney\u2019s Beauty and the Beast who in a\u00a0parallel universe (ie., our \u201creal\u201d world), is the town librarian. She\u00a0rehabilitates Rumpelstiltskin, Mr. Gold in our world, the \u201cdark\u201d one\u00a0a\/k\/a The Beast, to whom she gives her devotion and trust. She knows he is flawed, but counsels him\u00a0that she believes there to be goodness within him. As a further manifestation of her own goodness and\u00a0loyalty, she rescues Little Red Riding Hood from a mob by hiding her in the library, after it is discovered\u00a0that the wolf who is Little Red Riding Hood\u2019s nemesis is actually Little Red Riding Hood herself (she turns\u00a0into a werewolf at full moon \u2013 isn\u2019t this show clever?).<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the best book has the dustiest jacket. And sometimes, the best teacup is chipped.\u201d – Belle\u00a0to Mr. Gold.<\/p>\n

So there you have it \u2013 librarians who save their fellow townsfolk from ignorance, who save their fellow\u00a0planet inhabitants from certain death, who save their fellow prisoners from hopelessness, and who save\u00a0their fellow parallel universe companions from their dark sides. What other profession has so many\u00a0heroes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Tracy Wasserman, Senior Assistant, INALJ Florida My Favorite Fictional Heroic Librarians Who doesn\u2019t love a great story featuring a heroic librarian? TV shows, books, and movies have\u00a0portrayed many librarians as not only heroic, but intelligent, industrious and doggedly stubborn.\u00a0Librarians are a diverse bunch, and the world should know it! One thing they all have…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":84382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,5488,6663,6664,3652,6662,6668,6667,6666,548,6665,5893],"class_list":["post-84155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-fiction","tag-fictional-librarians","tag-heroic-librarians","tag-inalj-florida","tag-librarian-heroes","tag-once-upon-a-time-tv-show","tag-rita-hayworth-and-the-shawshank-redemption","tag-star-trek","tag-stephen-king","tag-the-music-man","tag-tracy-wasserman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/MusicMan1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-lTl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/84382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}