Patrons and staff move around the main reading room of New York's Astor Library

Librarians in Pop Culture

Patrons and staff move around the main reading room of New York's Astor Library
Patrons and library staff in the main reading room of the Astor Library as shown in this c. 1860 wood engraving from the Smithsonian’s collections.

If you are anything like me, it is interesting to see representations of librarians in pop culture. While many people in my life think I’m shushing noisy patrons while stamping books, it’s fascinating to see how movies, television, and other media portray libraries and librarians.

Since our Bulletin theme is “new”, I can’t rely on my all-time favorite librarian movie, Desk Set from the 1950s, even though its theme of “what if computers replaced librarians?” continues to be relevant (AI anyone?) Here are some interesting and more recent portrayals of librarians in books, movies, television, and social media.

Marvel’s blockbuster movies cover so much ground that it would be impossible for them not to have a librarian. Benedict Wong is wonderful as the monastery librarian in Dr. Strange. In recent years, libraries and librarians have made an appearance on Stranger Things (helping the young heroes look up information in the library), Parks and Recreations (the delightful Megan Mulcahey as the nefarious Tammy), Star Trek Discovery (a hidden library planet) and Zelda Schiff, (overseeing the Netherlands library) in The Magicians. The 2014 TV series, The Librarians, is set to start a new chapter in 2025.

Honorable mentions should go to television characters who do their own version of public records research, a common request in private law firm librarians. After watching Jessica Jones dig through municipal archives to trace the original incorporation of a company, I felt like a superhero the next time I poured through old legislation at Cook County Law Library. It did not surprise me at all to learn that Mick Heron, Slough Horses author, researches public records at a British law firm. Of course the creator of a thrilling and popular spy series has legal research experience in his background! I was inordinately delighted when a detective in the British procedural Criminal Intent was chastised for using the wrong permissible uses for license plate searches, one of the only times a procedural has gotten the legalities of snooping on people correct.

It is fitting that librarians play an important role in many books I’ve recently read. In Cloud Cuckoo Land (by Anthony Doerr of All the Light We Cannot See fame) several librarians are key characters, and an overriding theme of the novel is the power of stories. The Giver of Stars (JoJo Moyes) and The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek (Kim Michele Richardson) tell stories of pack horse librarians delivering books to remote areas during the Great Depression. I also enjoyed the nonfiction book A History of the Index by Dennis Duncan. As law librarians, we can appreciate that the invaluable Index has been helping people find what they need since the medieval ages. If you are a romance fan, Ava, the librarian heroine of the World War II novel The Library Spy by Madeleine Martin, uses her Library of Congress skills for espionage.

There is also a wealth of current social media celebrating libraries. Several libraries have fun Instagram accounts, including the Chicago Public Library, New York Public Library, Sedona Public Library, and the Milwaukee Public Library.

It’s fun to see our profession represented, although I’d love to see more law librarians depicted, especially showing our tenacity to unearth seeming unfindable information and our agility when faced with rapidly changing technology. From magical adventures to book delivery to remote rural locations, and everything in between, librarians have a fascinating place in popular culture. Drop me a line if I missed any of your favorites.