Fic: Introduction to Information Literacy
Title: Introduction to Information Literacy
Author: glorious_clio
Fandom: Community
Pairing/Character: None - just good old fashioned group shenanigans.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: none
Word Count: 1786
Author's Note: : I am a librarian at a community college, and I just want to take five minutes of your time and advocate for the institution. So often I’ve been asked by well-meaning family members “aren’t libraries dying”? This is a response to that. Sort of. Every single question in here is one that has been asked at least once. Even if the group isn’t asking a librarian.
Sadly, I don’t have my own Greendale Seven equivalent, let alone own the rights to this show.
I’m still fairly new to this fandom. Constructive Criticism is welcome with open arms. Seriously. Crossposted to fanfiction.net.
Summary: Annie overhears some librarians talking about decreasing the libraries hours from 24 hours to something more reasonable. The Greendale Seven, with the best of intentions, rally on different sides of the controversy.
It was nearing the end of the semester - tensions were high, snow banks were higher, and everyone was looking forward to the last Christmas break they would spend together as students.
“You guys, I have terrible news!” Annie cried, running in to Study Room F.
“What is it, Annie?” asked Shirley, emphasizing both syllables of Annie’s name in her motherly way.
“I just heard two of the librarians talking - one of them is retiring, and since they can’t afford to hire a new one, the library is decreasing its hours!! It won’t be open twenty-four hours anymore! How are we going to pull off our all-nighters?”
“Um, Wikipedia?” Jeff said absently while texting.
Abed frowned. “I have a deep distrust of Wikipedia. I’ve found too many errors on the Inspector Spacetime page, and every time I try and edit it, they tell me I don’t have the authority.”
“Abed! What if we started an Inspector Spacetime wiki?” Troy said suddenly.
Abed cocked his head to the side and measured up his friend and associate. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool.” He initiated their secret handshake.
“You guys, this is serious,” Annie insisted.
“What’s the big deal? Winger’s right. We gotta get with the times. It’s all happening online now. Soon, we won’t even need books. Look,” Pierce said easily. He pulled out a tablet. “This is the future of books.“
Britta shot back, “No it’s not! You can’t replace every single book with those things. And it would be stupid anyway! What would schoolkids in India do with those?”
“Um, make them?” Jeff tried.
“Shut up, Jeff, that’s China. What I’m saying is, there’s no way our overtaxed system can afford to buy them for every school, even if jaggy Republicans wanted to invest in our education system. Which, they don’t!”
“Britta, does everything have to be about politics?” Shirley asked with her sweetest voice.
“Actually, Shirley, the personal is political, or did you miss out on that feminist tidbit.” Britta mentioned in what she thought was a casual tone.
“Oh, sorry, I was too busy raising the next generation to read your latest feminist blog!” Shirley’s voice took a dangerous turn.
“You guys! Stop it. This is important! Especially if this is our last year here!” Annie tried to bring the conversation back.
Pierce was struggling to turn on his new tablet.
“Yeah yeah,” said Jeff.
“Why don’t we just ask a librarian if this is true,” Britta asked. “If they hold all the answers.”
“Okay,” said Abed.
No one moved.
After a beat, Troy and Abed both yelled out, “BOOKS!”
Mariah came to the door. “Can I help you guys?” Abed and Troy did not look at the woman who had, in their eyes, tried to split them up by making her choose between the two of them.
“Is it true the library is shortening its hours?” Britta asked.
“Um, yeah. How did you...” Mariah started to say before she was cut off.
“Wait - I’ve had this question for awhile - why are there still libraries?” Abed asked, overcoming his disdain.
Mariah rolled her eyes. “We’re not a warehouse for books. We’re a temple of learning. And it’s a setting for roughly 76% of your zany adventures, Greendale Seven.”
“So what do you want us to do, Annie? We can’t fight the machine of ebooks and Google digitizing everything,” Jeff pointed out.
“Please, you guys, we can be the loudest advocates on this campus,” Annie pointed out.
“And don’t trust Google too much,” Mariah warned quickly.
This grabbed Britta’s attention. “What’s up with Google?”
Mariah fidgeted under the sudden attention of the Greendale Seven. “Well, they won’t release their algorithms, your search results are based on your previous searches so you run the risk of creating a bubble around yourself, and it isn’t a hierarchical search, it’s based on hits. They also comply with online censorship in China. Libraries aren’t just about books, they’re about teaching you guys what to do with information you find.” She recited as if this was not the first time she had given this speech, and knew it wouldn’t be the last.
Britta bolted suddenly from the room.
“Uh, where is she going?” Mariah asked.
“Probably to make posters and t-shirts to bring down Google,” Jeff said mildly.
“So, shorter hours?” Annie insisted.
“Well, we are the only library in the area that’s open twenty four hours. City College closes at nine pm, except for finals week. We are considering going to a similar hours schedule,” Mariah reasoned.
“But why?” Shirley asked.
“You guys are... really upset about this. You know, we’re trying to meet and respond to Greendale’s unique needs. Like the end of the year sees a ceremonial trashing of the entire campus. Most of our budget is going to replace the materials you destroy. And we keep track of how many people are here and when, no one is really here after 7, unless it’s finals week,” Mariah said.
“Oh, Britta would love that. No one tell Britta the librarians do headcounts!” Jeff warned the group.
“Is she the one that... never mind,” Mariah said quickly. “Look, it won’t be until second semester, so you can still enjoy the last week of this one. And you can still access the library’s databases and some of the materials online from home. While not everyone has home internet access, we hope that this will save us a little money.”
“We know about Wikipedia, Maya,” Pierce said dismissively.
“Right... well, I’d be happy to discuss the budget and principles of library and information science and dissemination with you guys, but I suspect you need to do your own homework, not talk about mine.”
“Wait - you go to school for this job?” Troy demanded, his annoyance with her disappearing.
“Well, yeah, I have to keep my masters up to date,” Mariah said.
“You are telling me that you are a Master of the Library -- like a Jedi Master?!” Troy insisted.
“Something like that.”
“How hard is it to ask Google a question and read all day?” Shirley wondered out loud.
Mariah looked apoplectic. “Come to me if you have a serious question.” She fled the room.
“It’s worse than I thought, if the librarians aren’t upset,” Annie said, toying with her purple pen.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to work at a place that’s open twenty-four hours,” Pierce reasoned. It was unusual for him to apply logic.
“Guys, guys, why do we care if the library isn’t open twenty-four hours anymore?” Jeff asked.
“Jeff! It’s our home away from home,” Annie admonished.
“Is it?” insisted Jeff.
“A lot has gone down in this study room!” Shirley said.
“It’s become our living room,” Abed pointed out. “And there’s something to be said for setting. Where would the Jeffersons be without their deluxe apartment in the sky? The Simpsons couldn’t live anywhere other than the fictional Springfield. While Inspector Spacetime has all of space and time to play in, it is his X7 Dimensioniser time booth that he calls home.”
“Hogwarts!” Annie said suddenly. “Harry Potter needs it.”
Abed shrugged. “If your life was a tv show, what would the main setting be? Wouldn’t you want to be able to go there, anytime, day or night?”
Jeff looked a little disgusted.
Shirley and Annie chimed in with their customary, “Aww!”
Pierce asked, “What’s your setting, Abed?”
“The Dreamatorium,” Abed said without pause.
“But that’s my room now. Have you been in my room?!” Troy demanded. For a man who was so attached to Abed, it was a bit strange that now he was worried about Abed being in his room without permission.
“No,” Abed said flatly.
Troy was instantly calmed.
“Well,” said Pierce, breaking into the conversation. “I know what my setting would be - in the arms of a beautiful woman.”
“Gross,” Annie cringed.
“That’s enough, Pierce,” Shirley warned. “I agree with Annie and Abed. It’s a shame this place is closing.”
“It’s not closing!” Jeff shouted. “It’s just not going to be open twenty-four hours!”
“It might be the beginning of the end,” Troy said sadly.
...
“Jeff! I’ve made an inventory of famous librarians so you’ll help us. Although I’ve excluded any librarians you might not actually know of,” Abed ambushed Jeff as he was coming out of his history class.
“Does it include any Playmates?” Jeff asked.
Abed frowned at his list. “While the list does lean towards the trope of ‘sexy librarian’, I’ve tried to avoid any outright objectification out of respect for Britta.”
“All right. Hit me with your stupid list.”
“Giacomo Casanova - arguably the first of the sexy librarians, world’s greatest lover and inventor of the national lottery.”
“I thought you were avoiding that trope.”
“Does it count when they’re men?”
“Never mind. Did he really invent the lottery?”
“Yep. Next on the list: Batgirl.”
“Obviously.”
Abed ignored this interruption. “Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Franklin
Laura Bush
Lewis Carroll
Madeline L’Engle
Mao Zedong-”
“We should try and avoid any dictators,” Jeff interrupted.
“We?”
“You.”
Abed made a note before continuing with his list, “Marcel Proust
Elizabeth Taylor - the novelist, not the actress-
And as to the Fictional Librarians-”
“Wasn’t Batgirl the second on your list?”
Abed gave Jeff a leveling gaze, daring the lawyer to argue with him. Jeff decided to let it go.
Abed went on, “Flynn Carson, played by Noah Wyle in the horrible “The Librarian” trilogy.
Marian Paroo from “The Music Man”
Mr. Dewey in “The Pagemaster”
Evie Carnahan O’Connor from the Mummy franchise, but not the disappointing third Mummy, “Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” where Evie is inexplicably a romance novelist.”
“That’s quite a fall.”
“You’re telling me. And Last But Not Least: Rupert Giles in “Buffy; the Vampire Slayer.””
“Well obviously.”
Abed folded up his list. “Well? Are you going to help us?”
“Look. Mariah was right. They have budget constraints like everyone else in the world. If they want to keep buying books, they’re going to have to make some cuts somewhere. If there’s no one in the library after eleven, maybe they should save the money it would take to staff two people. And in case you haven’t noticed, we do hang out outside of Study Room F now.”
Jeff stopped suddenly in the hall.
On the wall was a handmade sign that said
“BURSTING YOUR BUBBLE!
DON’T TRUST GOOGLE
FOR YOUR SEARCHES
SEE THE LIBRARY FOR DETAILS!!”
There was another one.
“A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.”
~Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.
TALK TO YOUR LIBRARIAN ABOUT ONLINE CENSORSHIP
“Britta,” Jeff glowered.
“Disappointing,” Abed said. “She used papyrus font.”
chapter two