Background Research

I am not the first person to identify this relationship between dystopias and librarians. Early in my background research, I identified a blog post by Adelaide Robinson, the Curatorial Operations Coordinator at the Museum of London. Briefly, Robinson connects modern librarianship to several media tropes as they appear in various representations of the apocalypse genre. This paper owes a great deal of inspiration to Robinson’s The Post-Apocalypse Librarian. However, this concept still had a great deal of area to explore. Where Robinson’s post connects to these tropes’ physical activities or professions, we will explore the more esoteric implications for the “why” of Information Ethics and Collection Development.

A couple of weeks before I completed this paper, I came across a new reference to the Apocalypse Librarian trope that I found eerily relevant and too fantastic not to mention. Luke Humphris, a YouTuber and animator, created a brief animated short called Mangos. Manuals. Media. that takes a cozy look at Apocalypse Librarians in an ideal setting. In this setting, the librarians know precisely what is needed to restore civilization, and they get to it.

It’s the perfect plan. It is a good baseline reference for how things should go, excluding some complications from the fall of the civilization they seek to restore. It’s also super cute.

The Librarians didn't give up; they had a plan. Mangos. Mauals. Media. by Luke Humphris, YouTube, 2024.

I am also going to reference a great deal of media. The examples I use may include a spoiler or two for some

people, but I included references that are, in most cases, dated beyond what anyone would consider current media. Lexicon Any productive discussion must establish a common framework for the terms we wish to use. This discussion uses modern day Library Information Science definitions for standard terms and concepts. However, we will need to define some new applications for a few of these. Our goal here is to be as inclusive as possible, providing the widest variety of examples of an Apocalypse Librarian so that we can compare their situations in less-than-ideal circumstances with our

modern-day environment. By modifying these definitions, we will have the most relevant examples. These modifications are a matter

of scale and should not pose great leaps in logic.

Let’s start with the ones we know. In terms of an apocalypse, what would constitute

a “collection”?

Of course, we all know what a collection means to us as modern librarians. It already has a widely varied definition. Usually, we consider it any grouping of information or media purposefully arranged and managed with intent. We must expand this definition to a logical conclusion to include the broadest possible examples of Apocalypse Librarians existing in the most expansive possible set of

apocalyptic settings. In modern times, we might not consider an individual’s memory and experiences to fit this definition simply because they are universal to everyone; even though varied, everyone has a set based on the same reality. We spend most of our lives feeding our experiences, and the information moves in one direction. In an apocalypse, the value of those experiences as a resource amplifies if our experience is valuable or unique. It also necessitates that the information starts flowing in the other direction. If our Apocalypse Librarian finds themselves in a world where they are the last survivor or in a world where they are the exception (sometimes as the representative of the reader’s viewpoint) to the general mindset of an apocalyptic society, that position as an “outlier” absolutely validates their personal experience and memories as a “collection.” This project will consider that when defining Apocalypse Librarians and discussing examples.

Eli from The Book of Eli on his trek across an apocalyptic North America. Directed by The Hughes Brothers. Warner Brothers, 2010

Robinson makes this point in The Post-Apocalypse Librarian using Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. In which a father and son travel together through an apocalyptic wasteland. In this context, Papa has nothing that can be considered a traditional collection. However, he has a collection of memories about the time before the apocalypse that he intends to share with his son. Pappa

contains the wisdom to survive in this world, the instincts to

protect his son, and the desire for him to know something about the old world and the way things used to be. Robinson points out that a “collection” does not always need to contain physical items. Papa is an Apocalypse Librarian. It’s worth exploring exactly how the information exchange between Papa and his son occurs, if for no other reason than that this is what Cormac McCarthy does well. It takes place early in the book when the pair find a Coca-Cola.

What is it, Papa?

It’s a treat. For you.

What is it?

Here. Sit down.

He slipped the boy’s knapsack straps loose and set the pack on the floor behind him and he put his thumbnail under the aluminum clip on the top of the can and opened it. He leaned his nose to the slight fizz coming from the can and then handed it to the boy. Go ahead, he said.

The boy took the can. It’s bubbly, he said.

Go ahead.

He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said.

Yes. It is.

You have some, Papa.

I want you to drink it.

You have some.

He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it,

he said. Let’s just sit here.

It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isnt it?

Ever’s a long time.

Okay , the boy said.

Man (Papa) and boy (son) share a Coca- Cola in an apocalyptic wasteland in the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, directed by John Hillcoat. 2929 Productions.

With this passage, we get to see the actual information

exchange between the collection and the patron. Papa is the book his reader needs in a genuine sense. The experience Papacontains is a collection of information his son will require to keep the memory of civilization and himself alive. Papa is not only an Apocalypse Librarian; he is also the collection. Who is a “patron” in an apocalyptic setting?

In our modern world, a patron has the privilege to use a

library either through payment of a monthly fee or by being

a member of the community from which the library derives its operating budget through taxes or some other privilege that an intact society might provide. Similarly to the collection definition, we need to expand the patron definition to account for situational population conditions after an apocalypse. An apocalypse might force a tiny, specific group of people into what could be considered

a patron base. Sometimes, an apocalypse might add a new or nontraditional population or even reduce the population to one. In many cases, the social mechanisms to collect and distribute public funds, much less coordinate small public works projects like a library, no longer exist. We’d need to account for those situations when defining who a patron is.

For example,

In the classic Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last,”

Henry Bemis, an avid reader, falls asleep in a vault and wakes up to the world being destroyed; he is the last person left. Henry suddenly finds himself alone with all the time in the world to read all the books he could ever want.

I always found this episode weird because the reality Henry lived in before the apocalypse was one where his boss and wife constantly nagged him about reading too much, to the point where he was hiding books in sofa cushions to sneak a read whenever possible. It is a great way to juxtapose the environment with the post-apocalyptic wasteland where Henry has all the time in the world to read, but I wonder which reality would have been worse.

Henry is the patron in this story; as the only person left alive, he is the only one who can be.