Literary Librarians

Some of my favourite imaginative books feature librarians and although stereotypical portrayals sadly still occur, with timid, meek, bespectled female librarians a mainstay, I have found some of the most interesting and unconventional literary library characters as inspirational, intriguing and thought provoking reading as semi-role models. Here are a few of my favourite literary librarians:

1. In Umberto Eco's extraordinary medieval epic, The Name of the Rose, Malachi is the brilliant librarian pivotal to the plot, revealing craven mysteries of the library.
2. In the delicate novel, That Uncertain Feeling by Kingsley Amis, a bored, Welsh librarian has unsatisfying adventures outside his stale marriage. In the film version of the novel, the librarian was played with a light, manic energy by Peter Sellers.
3. In Stephen Kings horror novel, It, the main narrator is a librarian (Mike Hanlon), known as the 'keeper of the lighthouse' - a beautiful metaphor for a library.
4. In Garth Nix's lyrically imaginative Lirael (2001), the title character is a curious, nimble minded assistant librarian.
5. In Neil Gaiman's graphic novel series, The Sandman, the guardian librarian of the 'The Dreamings' library is Lucien, who guards all the books that are dreamt, but never written.
6. Read or Die (aka R.O.D.) a futuristic, violent manga series, the librarian/researcher Yomiko Readman, works for the famous Library of England as an eminent bibliophile and researcher of rare literary works.
7. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, supernatural, hyper-space travelling librarians feature frequently, most notably one who transforms into an Orangutan. Who hasn't had that feeling?
8. And who can forget Batgirl, the original cool librarian, who transforms into Oracle (Barbara Gordon) after she is shot by the fantastical Joker, becoming a computer literate, modern librarian, in the Batman comic series.
9. And in the ever reliable Harry Potter series, Irma Pince is a minor character, and bossy, intellectual librarian in the Hogwarts library.