I’m a LIS student right now, so of course, the best way to learn the material I am studying is of course to apply it to the Jedi Temple Library.

(Important caveats: I love Star Wars, all ribbing is incredibly affectionate)

#StarWars

In particular, I am curious about shelving, how the Jedi act as mediators of information (which is fitting as peace keepers and mediators to the galaxy, they would also be mediators of information), and of course, how this all relates to the canon and the Sith

This is unfortunately the only gif I could find of our intrepid Jedi Librarian, Jocasta Nu, but she’s dope, esp. in the Vader comics, shout out to Jocasta, let’s find out if you are a good librarian!

Our first issue is shelving. Jedi Information Objects (a term that literally just means any object that is recorded info) seem to be exclusively three things: Holocrons, holos that are not holocrons, and “Sacred Jedi Texts” which are apparently the only books in the galaxy

Side note: I am sure everything I am about to type can and will be proven inaccurate by Wookiepedia. But that is not the exercise, the exercise is to take what I’m learning in school and like everything I do in life, do my best to never go on wookiepedia-I will get lost there

Back on track: Holocrons are typically big bulky square or triangular objects that unfurl in cool Jedi ways to produce holograms of information. Now that I think about it, there’s also those little spheres in AotC but we never really see or talk about those again so...

Whatever geometric shape they take, Holocrons are Physical Recorded Objects of Information that have to be stored. We see the Jedi Temple has a library that stores them, in a vast drawer like system—this makes sense, as I’m sure the Holocrons are delicate, and it would be easier

To put them in a drawer rather than stack em up on shelves where the various shapes might not all fit. Now this is likely a pain in the ass for cataloging. How is poor ol’ Jocasta gonna remember where each holocron goes? The Holocrons themselves have no distinct identifying

Features from one another. They are all pretty and decorative, but all the information including “what is in this holocron” are locked inside, or we wouldn’t have delightful arcs of weird Madmen trying to convince teen boys to help them uncover their secrets, yeah?

You need the force basically to know what the hell is in your library. As a catalog system meant for Jedi? That works pretty great. But for anybody else, not so much. But it’s a specialized library, what are you gonna do, make it universally available? *eyes JSTOR longingly*

Also, there’s evidence to suggest within the canon text that this system of Force Classification isn’t so great, and that the library itself isn’t available to all Jedi (or force users however we wanna look at it)
This poor dude went Sith just cause they wouldn’t let him read!!

We’ll get back to him, but another point against the Force Classification (and against the Jedi Temple Library being so closed to outsiders!) is how easily information is lost within the canon of Star Wars. There is, of course, the tragedy of Order 66, which led to the

Destruction or hording of information by Sidious and his empire. But even before then, the library is easily able to be infiltrated to the degree that there are two incidents of important information disappearing or being stolen. They don’t have copies or back ups!

Finding that gif there’s a whole ‘nother time information is destroyed! Thematically, a great moment! Librarianship-wise: What the hell?! Dick move, Yoda.

But the two I meant to talk about are the loss of all records of an entire planet in AotC, and the whole “Hey no big deal, it’ll be easy to steal the Holocron that has all Future Jedi Kids info and addresses on it.”
...if you’ve seen my feed you knew he was coming up eventually.

First of all, highly unethical in terms of library and information science, for the Jedi to be keeping that info at all. I know it’s sort of a Thing, but in terms of LIS and research ethics, total failure on their part.
Moving on. The Jedi Library has no method to protect this

Info other than temple guards and Jocasta Nu being a badass. In the Vader comic, if I recall correctly, she has to defend this information again. Another good line of defense is that the Sith cannot open Jedi holocrons, so at least they have good defenses... but why no backups?

Once Jedi information is lost it is seemingly lost forever. They can deduce some of it, as Obi Wan is able to with Yoda and the younglings about Kamino’s location, but... Didn’t the resident Librarian think to question why it was missing in the first place?

That would warrant some severe looks into their cataloging and their collection to see if anything else of the sort was missing or incorrect. Not to mention the Jedi Kid Tracker holocron if that was successfully stolen or destroyed, does a whole generation go by without training?

This brings us to Sith info. In the Dooku radio drama, a young Dooku and friends attempt to sneak into the Restricted Section of the Jedi library, and a lot of stuff gets destroyed. There are numerous thematic arguments on whether or not the Jedi should learn about the Sith

If info on the Sith should even be collected if it is just going to be hidden, and if the information is valuable for Jedi to know to better protect themselves, or better understand the dark side. Obviously, these talks don’t go well. The Inquisitor similarly is denied access

To information, and it drives him mad. That’s his personal problem, but as a whole, these are not marks of good mediators. The role of the librarian is to mediate information to the public, and that includes to varying degrees some education on the topic.

There’s a whole debate in the field about neutrality and I’m definitely not gonna argue it here, but the principle sort of argues that info should be available for the public to make informed decisions. So should the Jedi do the same? Is it the information that corrupts Dooku

and the Inquisitor, or is it the obsession because it has been denied them and they feel entitled to it? I would argue the latter, as that fits more within Star Wars’ themes, but then as a library, shouldn’t the Jedi Temple Library know that could be possible, and thus mediate

That information? I guess I’m running out of tweets (???) but so far, it looks like the Jedi Temple Library is sort of a crappy one so far. Maybe not in Star Wars themes, but in Library Science for sure. Might revisit this later, as I learn more