I was delighted when I found out the Doctor was to visit a library
planet and thoroughly enjoyed Silence in the Library and Forest of the
Dead.
Myself and my colleagues at the Scottish Library and Information Council
(SLIC) had a Monday morning discussion about books and libraries in
Doctor Who which led to a post on the SLIC/CILIPS blog:
http://scottishlibraries.wordpress.com/.
We were also dubious of Donna's claim to have mastered Dewey in 2 days!
Gillian Hanlon
Information Officer, SLIC
-----Original Message-----
From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and
discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Duncan Irvine
Sent: 12 June 2008 12:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Doctor Who does books
Enjoyable twaddle, in that libraries did feature prominently. In a
previous episode, the Doctor's assistant boasted that she had mastered
the "Duo-decimal" system in two days--I am still trying, after 37 years!
Duncan T.D. Irvine,
Head of Bibliographic Control,
University of Strathclyde,
GLASGOW G4 0NS,
United Kingdom
'The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, number SC015263.'
> -----Original Message-----
> From: A general Library and Information Science list for news and
> discussion. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Timothy
> Collinson
> Sent: 12 June 2008 12:42
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Doctor Who does books
>
> Now that the episodes have been broadcast I feel I can comment, but
> back in April Alison McNab wrote:
>
> > In the Year of
> > Reading, it is good to see that the new series of Doctor Who (which
> kicks
> > off on Saturday) features two episodes set in a library and one
> episode which
> > features Agatha Christie's ten-day disappearance and
> provides viewers
> with the opportunity to
> > "spot how many titles of Christie novels are hidden in the
> dialogue".
>
> Mixed feelings here in our library about the quality of that episode
> (some loved it, some hated it), but all enjoyed playing spot the
> title.
>
>
> > A two-part story Silence in the Library and River's Run
>
> I think the 2nd part was called 'Forest of the Dead'. [OK, have just
> been looking on Wikipedia and found it's name was changed late in the
> day].
>
> > apparently promises "an abandoned library, moving shadows, the
> gruesome
> > Nodes, and the horrifying Data Ghost" - the Radio Times
> reviewer says
> the
> > latter is "possibly the most spine-chilling scene I've ever seen,
> > anywhere".
>
> The promises were right! Of course I only watch to keep my
> 13 year old
> daughter company :-) but they were quite spine-chilling.
> Not quite as
> terrifying as 'Blink' with the stone angels IMO - but then I avoid out
> and out horror films so I have a low 'scary' threshold!
>
>
> > Can't help feeling there is scope for Friday afternoon lis-link
> musings on
> > Data Ghosts and digital preservation.......
>
>
> I know it's not Friday yet but the library planet was interesting for
> a few reasons:
>
> First, it's sheer *scale*. It made Asimov's citywide planet Trantor
> look positively parochial - ISTR it had a library but only as a part
> of the city.
>
> Second, it was curious in that although I think the Doctor said it had
> every book ever written wasn't it said that they were *reproductions*
> of the originals? So it hinted at digital preservation working in
> that the masters must have existed to produce the reprints, but that
> readers would still prefer to read hard copies. The question arose in
> my mind as to what happened to print on demand?!
>
> Looking at some of the shelves in the library, it did appear that a
> lot of books were reproduced with standardised bindings which would be
> a loss. But to be fair we saw so little of the entire Library we may
> just happened to have seen some series or sets or some such.
>
> Thirdly, the 'hard drive' at the core of the planet reminded me a lot
> of the giant city sized computers of science fiction from the 50s and
> 60s. (Asimov again and Multivac for example). Do I take it the
> miniaturization we see at present doesn't continue to the 51st
> century?
>
>
> And no prizes for knowing library staff with less life than the data
> nodes...
>
> tc
>
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