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You know that library show in Doctor Who where you first meet River Song and learn about CAL and the Vashta Nerada? It's a library as big as a planet and contains all the collected knowledge in the universe for its time, which at that time is the 51st century.
I was one of those kids in school that read just about every single library book the schools had available. Prolific doesn't begin to describe how much material I've read in my life. When I saw The Library (that's the wiki page), I knew if that really existed and I could ever go there, I'd never leave. I would either lose myself in that library or become one of the people working there. I'm sure it would have reading rooms full of poof chairs and recliners and coffee shops every few sections.
My own local library is also called, simply, The Library. (They sell their own coffee, guys. And that site doesn't link you to the awesome coffee shop they have.) I've paid an annual out of county fee for years just to be able to check things out. (It's been holding at $65 last few years.) I've been able to get books shipped in to me that are so rare that one of them had only two copies existing in libraries nationwide. I've also been able to get my library to invest in a few books that don't show up on Amazon or in bookstores because they are alt-published and directly marketed from author sites, which means (when I'm successful in my proposals) I save upwards of $60+ every time I can talk my library into owning it for the public, as opposed to me owning it only for myself and reading it only once or twice.
Things are changing, though. Over the years, books that don't see a lot of action get purged out through fundraiser sales, which is sad because some of the coolest books I've ever read have been lost to rummage sales and recycling. A few old books are making comebacks online as retro keepsakes and collectibles, but so many are just gone now, out of print, and extremely difficult to find, especially in libaries. Imagine that.
I've written here and there about my library experiences, like the time I held one of Michio Kaku's books hostage and the library kept sending me threatening letters, but normally the library is pure magic for me. Much of my Lexx blogging content has been written out at a big table in that library.
Way off the subject, I accidentally just discovered that GrandFortuna's League of 20,000 Planets | Lexx holds third rank for 'xanga mobile' keyword, according to website-box.net, and I only found that because I was actually looking for 'bluejacky xanga bio' and I got there from this on the front page of the google search.
But it's actually not completely off the subject because, before xanga razed all the blogs over to new servers, we had bio pages, and I had listed off fave books, fave movies, etc., and either the bios never made the move or they haven't figured out how to hook them up in the wordpress style cage they locked us all into, and apparently I didn't copy and save it anywhere before it went MIA. And then right after I found that, I also discovered that a particular post in my old bluejacky blog is somehow link-jacked to an erotica network site outside the States that rotates the pages that load up so you never get the same page twice. Fine, whatever does it for you. Send traffic back, thanks.
But back to where I was going with this library thing. It hit me this week that I'll never read all the books. I used to go to bookstores and browse titles in the science section just to see who had published what new stuff, but now it's going so fast on the webs that I hafta catch summary blurbs on the fly and still can't keep up with all the new science, even in cosmology. The last few years have been pretty mind blowing, and the only way I can keep up reading all that now is to walk away from all my projects. The only way I keep up with TV any more is through wikis and recaps.
I'm having weird feelings about the idea that I'll never go back to reading all the things I wanted to keep up with. Researchers nowadays have turned into recappers, basically high speed glancers who summarize and translate techie talk to TV show viewers who don't care whether 120 year old real science is still being obliterated and yet craving new stories at any cost. All that old, dusty knowledge and all the new empty heads bobbing around the planet going along their busy days- even if new knowledge is scifi come true, it's like we're all becoming disenchanted with the overwhelming onslaught of new entertainment and the marketing frenzy around related collectible merch. I keep seeing people turning back to the nostalgia of old shows and crappy science because it was magical back then. Scifi is losing its magic. It's become mundane.
I've been standing at an apex where I know I have to choose. I once said I can't be both a leader and a follower.
You’re either a leader or a suck up, I can’t be both.
And I can't help noticing when an international recapping service follows my lead on something. I'm here to inspire, guys. Some people can see where I'm going with a world fandom and that I'll be dragging everyone I can in my wake. The more of us who figure out how to fly in formation, the bigger our fleet will be. These aren't just TV shows to me. They're IDEAS. I can't sit around talking about ideas without applying them and using them and making them real. If the stories inspire us, that means we get off our butts and GET TO WORK! FOCUS!!!
By the way, if y'all aren't hanging out with international fans and actually using translation services, you need to be. Your readership with your fanbases are important. Those are real people out there. Well, at least I know mine are because I'm all over controlling the pingbacks and spambots and stuff.
There was a time when building a library of information and knowledge was up to other people, usually people who get paid. Now it's all of us. We are the ones building wikis and fansites and entertainment information libraries and film studies because we love it. Most of my friends who endeavor to build on the internet are all doing it out of pocket. We are all adding to a world library.
My job is to add as much as I can while I can to the Lexx Memory Catacombs.
