Sunnydale High School library
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer is not the only work of fiction in which imaginary books play a central role. H. P. Lovecraft's fiction featured the infamous Necronomicon. Many of Dean Koontz's novels contain excerpts from his imaginary tome, The Book of Counted Sorrows. Stephen King alludes to a host of imaginary novels in his own novel, Bag of Bones. In fact, so many authors have referenced imaginary books and, in some cases, entire imaginary libraries that The Invisible Library has catalogued these "imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound," both by actual author, imaginary writer, and imaginary volume's title [1].
Authors create imaginary books and libraries for many reasons. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the books in the Sunnydale High School library lend an air of humor and verisimilitude to the mystical, metaphysical, paranormal, and supernatural character of the show; at the same, time, the library provides a convenient means for the characters to discover the true nature of the latest forces and entities that the Hellmouth has unleashed upon them and supports the show's own nature as a Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, symbolizing the importance both of growing up and of growing in knowledge and understanding, as many critics have pointed out.
In an interview, film director Brian De Palma explained the importance of high school as a setting in the film version of Stephen King's novel, Carrie. For teenagers, de Palma said, high school is the world. In addition, as Michael Betancourt points out in his essay, "Educating Buffy: The Role of Education in Buffy the Vampire Slayer[2]," the Sunnydale High School library is a central metaphor for the characters' coming-of-age, both social and sexual, that informs the entire series.
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[edit] Description
Students and other visitors entered the library through swinging double doors equipped with small, round windows. The library's vestibule led past the checkout counter, behind which was the doorway that led into the librarian's private office.
The library occupied two levels.
- Lower level
The lower level was devoted to a large study table surrounded by chairs and illuminated by lamps with yellow glass shades. Occasionally, a computer occupied a place at the table. Old-fashioned card catalogues stood to one side of the library. The librarian preferred books to computers. Perhaps his disdain for computers was reflected in his preference for the old-fashioned card catalogues over compuetized library databases. A book cage for the storage of rare volumes was located at the rear of the library's lower level.
- Stairs
A short flight of stairs led from the lower to the upper level.
- Upper level
The library's upper level was fronted by a low bookcase and a handrail. It was occupied with rows of bookshelves, or stacks. A doorway at the rear of the upper story allowed egress from the library's upper level. Hemispherical windows were set high in one of the side walls.
- Skylight
A large skylight in the center of the ceiling admitted sunlight into the library and allowed access to the library from the school's rooftop. During a fight with The Master, a centuries-old vampire, Buffy flipped him through the skylight, and he fell upon the broken edge or leg of an upturned table.
[edit] Esoteric collections
In addition to the traditional volumes and periodicals that an American high school library may be expected to contain, the Sunnydale High School library housed an extensive collection of the sort of books to which Edgar Allan Poe referred, in The Raven, as "many a quaint and curious volume of long-forgotten lore." Esoteric and occult in nature, many of these books took as their topics forces, entities, and phenomena that were of a supernatural or a paranormal character. In their excellent companion volume to the television show, Dusted: The Unathorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the authors keep track of the many strange books on magic and metaphysics that the Sunnydale High School library contains.
As Dusted's authors point out, the library's holdings are astonishingly inclusive, so much so that librarian Rupert Giles tells one of his students to focus on texts concerning "reanimation theory" while he pokes around the stacks regarding "organ harvesting." The episode "Graduation Day" suggests that these books are available to students for checkout, and one student, Xander Harris, does check out a book on witchcraft because, he confesses, it has pictures of scantily clad women among its illustrations.
In the first episode of the series, Giles tries to interest the school's newcomer, Buffy Summers, in a book entitled VAMPYR. Another book, the title of which is not mentioned, predicts the Harvest, a supernatural event that occurs during the series' second episode.
These occult and esoteric volumes are mentioned in the series:
- First Season
- Vampyr (mentioned in "Welcome to the Hellmouth")
- Witches: Historic Roots to Modern Practice and the Pagan Rites (mentioned in "Witch")
- The Book of Aurelius (mentioned in "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date")
- Sherman Jeffries' work on cults (mentioned in "The Pack")
- The Watchers' diaries (mentioned in "Angel")
- The Pergamum Codex - this book was lost, but Angel brings Giles a copy (mentioned in "Out of Sight, Out of Mind")
- The Tiberius Manifesto - This book like The Pergamum Codex was lost (mentioned in "Out of Sight, Out of Mind")
- Legends of Vishnu (mentioned in "Out of Sight, Out of Mind")
- The Black Chronicles (mentioned in "Prophecy Girl")
- Second Season
- An unnamed Latin translation of a Sumerian revivification ritual (mentioned in "When She Was Bad")
- An encoded book of spells and rituals written in archaic Latin by theologian and mathematician Josephus de Lac (mentioned in "What's My Line, Part I")
- The Slayers Handbook (mentioned but not seen in "What's My Line, Part II" or any episode afterwords)
- Dramius' writings (in at least six volumes)(mentioned in "What's My Line, Part II")
- An unnamed volume concerning the Order of Taraka (mentioned in "What's My Line, Part II")
- Bristow's Demon Index (mentioned in "Bad Eggs")
- Hell's Offspring (mentioned in "Bad Eggs")
- An unnamed text concerning Angelus (mentioned in "Passion")
- A book containing drawings of demons, including a cover illustration of Der Kindestod (mentioned in "Killed By Death")
- Third Season
- Two books on the Ovu Mobani mask (mentioned in "Dead Man's Party")
- Exploring Demon Dimensions (mentioned in "Beauty and the Beasts")
- Mystery of Acathla (mentioned in "Beauty and the Beasts")
- Sir Robert Kane’s Twilight Compendium (mentioned in "Revelations")
- A volume containing Father Theodore of Wolsham’s engraving of the Glove of Myhnegon (mentioned in "Revelations")
- A book concerning the demon Anyanka (mentioned in "The Wish")
- Diary of Lucius Temple (mentioned in "Amends")
- A series of letters regarding The First (mentioned in "Amends")
- Blood Rites and Sacrifices (mentioned in "Gingerbread")
- Hebron’s Almanac (mentioned in "The Zeppo")
- Merenshtadt Text (mentioned in "Enemies")
- A book on poison, including the poison that Faith Lehane uses in her attempt to kill the vampire Angel (mentioned in "Graduation Day, Part I")
- Kippler volumes (mentioned in "Graduation Day, Part II")
Although Giles admitted that his library contained neither Hume’s Paranormal Encyclopedia nor The Labyrinth Maps of Malta, these books, he said, were on order.
[edit] Book relocation
In the last two episodes of the series’ third season, Buffy and her friends remove Giles’ books from the school library in anticipation of their detonation of explosives they’ve stockpiled in the library as a means of destroying Mayor Richard Wilkins III after he has ascended to the level of a “pure demon.” The books are relocated to the The Magic Box, a store that Giles buys after resigning as Sunnydale High’s librarian. The characters continue to use the books they have rescued from the library to identify demons and other supernatural and paranormal threats, adding to their ever-growing collection.
Sunnydale High School was rebuilt, in an entirely different, more modern architectural design. Although it contained a library, the new library did not house any of the special collections that the original library contained and, in the new school, the principal's office, not the library, was located directly over Sunnydale's Hellmouth.
[edit] Other features of the library
The high school library also contained a book cage in which Giles kept expensive, rare volumes. After Oz became a werewolf as a result of having been bitten by his cousin, Giles would lock him inside the book cage until he transformed back into a human being. Buffy, Faith, Willow Rosenberg, and Xander would take turns guarding Oz to make sure he did not escape. In addition to the stacks and book cage, the library had space for Giles’ private office, and there was a trapdoor hidden behind the stacks that led outside the school building.
[edit] Toy library
Diamond Comic Distributors offers a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Sunnydale Library Playset for sale [3], describing the item as having "an occult section larger than the Smithsonian’s," reminding customers that the library "served as the Scooby Gang’s not-so-secret headquarters for three years," and vowing that it is "perfect for displaying. . . Buffy the Vampire Slayer action figures." The playset is constructed according to the "two-level design" that characterized the show's library and includes "a table, moveable bookcases, and several other extra accessories." It sells for $60.
[edit] See also
- Buffyverse chronology - List of Buffyverse stories (episodes, comics and novels) in chronological order.
- List of Buffyverse-related topics - Index of articles relating to Buffy and Angel.
[edit] External links
- For information on Dusted: The Unathorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, visit http://www.madnorwegian.com/product.php?item=dusted
- The article on the following web site is one of several scholarly essays that discuss the importance of the Sunnydale High School library as a symbol of knowledge and learning, especially in regard to adolescence, that is a central theme of the series: http://www.art.net/~betan/texts/pdf/educatingbuffy.pdf#search='Sunnydale%20library%20buffy%20the%20vampire%20slayer
- This web site describes H. P. Lovecraft's imaginary volume, the Necronomicon, explaining how and why it was important to Lovecraft's fiction: http://www.mystae.com/restricted/streams/scripts/necronomicon.html
- This site is dedicated to what it refers to as "imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound": http://www.invisiblelibrary.com
