SOURCE: Sawyer, Andy. “The Librarian and His Domain.” In Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature, edited by Andrew M. Butler, Edward James, and Farah Mendlesohn, pp. 66-82. Reading, England: The Science Fiction Foundation, 2000.

In the following essay, Sawyer investigates Pratchett's use of the library and the librarian in his fiction, concluding that despite the parodic style, he believes Pratchett's treatment of each is one of respect.

Evelyn: I may not be an explorer … I may not be an adventurer … but I'm proud of what I am!

Rick: And what is that exactly?

Evelyn: I'm a librarian!

The Mummy (1999)

‘[…] there is no higher life form than a librarian.’

(Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen, 1999: 10)

Libraries in fiction are useful and obvious metaphors for ‘the world’. Jorge Luis Borges's ‘The Library of Babel’ is wittily echoed in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and Gene Wolfe's ‘Book of the New Sun’ series...