Job opening:
Time traveler, must provide own temporal locomotive device.Request:
Return to the Library of Alexandria an hour before the destruction began and secure every book, scroll, and other media.Paradox prevention:
All items will be secured in forbidden and eldritch libraries to allow study but not interference with the flow of time.Compensation:
Name it.Apply:
Before this post was made and after you have completed your task.Dearest Atticus,
Mission accomplished!
Utilizing a proprietary temporal-tunneling ritual, I and a couple of helpful interns returned to the Musaeum and associated Library circa 40 BCE. Well-glamoured disguises, scrying charms, and paradox-canceling talismans were employed to prevent discovery and subsequent damage to the established timeline.
We hit the indices first to get a proper idea of what we’d be looking for. The language was no barrier, thanks to a good deal of studying, and in a week’s time, we had a healthy checklist, prepared sets of instructions, and several archivists bribed to carry out said instructions over the course of the following five years. (Attached please find an expense slip for ten [10] amphora of wine and associated shipping costs.)
Working within existing Library policies, we successfully installed agents who will, under the auspice of cataloguing and correlating scholarly research, disseminate copies of all existing non-duplicated media to libraries and archives in other locations. The more widespread, the better.
While we cannot vouch for either the longevity of the papyrus or the safety of the duplicate documents once they reach their destinations, we feel that our efforts will at the very least preserve a portion of what the former timeline once called “lost.” The Library of Alexandria lives on…if you know where to look.
In your inbox is a listing of the documents catalogued and their associated locations. With any luck, the duplicates should still exist in the new present day. I have included some steathily-obtained photos as proof of our little venture. I think you will especially enjoy the group selfie with the head archivist.
Aside from the pittance for the wine bribe, which is calculated without accounting for inflation, we ask no compensation for this mission. As a student of history and a lifelong lover of books, I consider it a service to posterity.
Sincerely Yours,
Bree & Co.
Tag: libraries
Are there any works in the post-apocalyptic genre with post-apocalyptic librarians? People who worked in the public library and after the Bad Thing decide to stay and keep the library clean, safe and available for anyone who needs it. People can’t remove books from the premises anymore, because they’re too precious, but you can stay as long as you want and read them or copy them out–the librarians encourage making copies, so that the information can circulate beyond the physical boundaries of the library.
After a while it becomes an unspoken reality of the post apocalyptic society that you Just Don’t fuck with the library. You don’t fight there, you don’t steal from it, you don’t allow harm to come to librarians when they have to leave the building for supplies.
People donate food and books and paper with no expectation of reciprocity, because the librarians don’t ask for anything when you need a place to hide or information or, fuck, to read a schlocky crime novel because you need to escape reality in some purple prose.
i need this like water and also air
OH HELL TO THE YES
Also consider: a library has a duplicate book, and wants to hire mercenaries to transport it to a library that doesn’t have a copy of that book. The most well known mercs in the world show up to volunteer for the job because they haven’t read that one yet.
… this may be the prompt that gets me off my ass and writing again.
It’s not librarians, but Dies the Fire by S M Stirling has as one of it’s power city-states the City of Corvallis, centered around Oregon State University.
This is also a series where a group of Wiccans face off against the SCA for power in Oregon.
Hey, so did you know that librarians tend to run liberal?
And that they’re really against censorship?
And that nearly all libraries have policies that prohibit people from harassing others inside?
And that nearly all libraries have free wifi and desktop computers that erase history when you’re done using them?
And that librarians are totally chill with you hanging out all day? (provided you don’t spill things on the books)
And that libraries often have huge offerings of dvds which you can watch on your laptop in the library?
And that libraries tend to have lots of resources for folks who find themselves in distress?
What I’m saying is, if shit hits the fan, go to the library, you’re welcome here.
Abso-fucking-lutely!
Yes. This. Absolutely THIS.
Steel Phoenix Studios 