Disasters in The Library

Okay guys. Real talk here.
Hogwarts Castle is insanely dangerous.

For some of you, this isn't news at all. Disasters at the school are a regular occurrence. Just a light perusal of Hogwarts: A History reveals that Hogwarts has had a total of more than twelve major disasters, not including the Battle of Hogwarts. That's why it's necessary for our library to have disaster plan in place to save our precious collection.

Let's have a rundown of said Disaster Plan implemented by the venerable Madam Pince, shall we?

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1. Evacuate all Staff and Students from the Library. 
 
Speaks for itself, right? Gather all the students and get them out of the room in a calm and orderly fashion.

2. Rapid Assessment of the Emergency.

Look into the danger and the damage extent.

3. Take Steps to prevent any further damage to the collection.

Remove as many endangered materials as possible from the Danger Zone.

4. Notify the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes.

You could send an owl (the slowest method), call via Floo Powder, or send a teacher to Apparate there (the fastest method).

5. Stabilize the environment.

Close the library and do not let any unauthorized people inside.

6. Do comprehensive assessment of collection damage.

Take inventory and take note of the extent of the damage done to the collection.

7. Salvage damaged items and begin repairs.

Only do this after the Library is guaranteed safe.
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It's a straightforward plan. Thankfully, we haven't had to implement this plan very often, but there is one recent incident that comes to mind.

One afternoon, Cadmus Finnigan was tending to his schoolwork within the library. As far as I know, he was studying his Standard Book of Spells when he decided he would try a spell out for himself. Unfortunately, he was not aware that, or perhaps ignored our clearly-stated policy- Spells aren't to be practiced outside of the classroom for underage wizards - particularly first years! It turned out he really did take after his father Seamus Finnigan (a boy who could set water on fire, given half the opportunity)- as his spell went badly wrong and his entire stack of textbooks burst into flames!

Actual photo of the after-effects. JUST KIDDING.

As a result, students began to use Aguamenti to distinguish the fire. While this might have diminished the threat of fire to our collection, the amount of water spewing out of student's wands quickly turned into a minor flood. Next thing we knew, half of our History of Magic books were soaked through and bloated, almost beyond repair. Fortunately, we were able to reverse the effects of the spell and revive the books.

So you can see why having a disaster plan in place is so important in a place like the Hogwarts Library - especially with that Finnigan around.

Repairing Books

A problem we face as a school library is the possibility of students damaging library property. We enchant books against standard wear-and-tear of course, but we just can't prevent certain accidents. I feel like this is something that happens at magical schools more often, just because the library material is constantly surrounded by students casting spells, magic plants and animals spewing all sorts of mystery fluid around, and potions. Merlin's pants, the potions spill everywhere. We cast basic liquid-repelling bewitchments on all our books but for some strange reason, many potions can bypass the enchantment and suddenly we have paperbacks the size of phone books and textbooks that work better as paperweights than anything actually readable.

One of my favorite stories relating to this subject concerns a certain third-year by the name of Scorpius Malfoy (yes, that Malfoy- I know, I know, but I think he's actually a sweet kid despite the rumors.) From what I heard, the little Malfoy isn't as gifted at Potions like his father had been, and this is evident to me by the fact that one day, Scorpius came into the library holding what seemed to be a vaguely square-shaped whoopee cushion that he deposited on my desk. It wasn't until I read the label on the flat thing that said Magical Drafts and Potions that I realized it was his textbook, likely suffering from the effects of a Deflating Draught.

Now, how would you go about repairing this sort of thing? Well, for most spilled substances we use Madame Glossy's Silver Polish Magical Cleaning Solution to clear up the effects of potions from most things, including books, and a few simple Scourgify or Reparo charms for similar situations. That worked like a charm (ha ha!) for Scorpius' textbook, and for the books of many other students before him.

There are occasional problems we can run into where a special book- a very old, restricted section book that is more of a unique artifact than a book that should be circulated at all- gets damaged in some freak accident. This is a whole other issue, as these books can actually turn on the person trying to repair them and injure them with its protective enchantments. In this case, you just can't use any spells, but luckily that doesn't mean the book is forever lost. Sometimes we can manually repair them with the same methods and materials that muggles use. It's a manual, time-consuming process that is done with great care and a variety of materials- a list of which I will supply here.

Sometimes books are so badly damaged that they need to be entirely replaced. It's sad, but that sort of thing is why multiple copies are created, right?

Shelf Reading

 Shelf reading is one step we take in the Hogwarts Library to ensure everything is in working order. A basic rundown of shelf reading is that we read the spines of books to check the collection for damages, make sure everything's in the correct sequence, and remind ourselves of where certain books are for later if we need it. It's monotonous, time-consuming, and you tend to go cross-eyed if you shelf-read more than one section of shelving for more than an hour. Even in our world full of convenient magical spells for almost everything, shelf-reading is a part of every librarian's job. There's even a small loophole in our shelving spells; the charm is triggered only if the book is removed from library walls- if the book was taken off the shelf and read in the library, then returned in an incorrect spot on shelf, it stays there unless we find it and tuck it back in its regular place.

Finding mixed-up books actually benefits us in a sense. This way we see which collection areas are getting the most use, and if the books are rarely checked-out but read often inside the library we don't accidentally weed something that is in fact, used by students. Also, maybe by seeing these books we could find out why they are being read but not checked out.

- A Hidden Gem -
A book card found in Hogwarts: A History, signed by many notable people in the Wizarding World.
I've got everybody's autograph!

Shelf-reading the Restricted Section is always a treat. Seeing books titled things like Famous Fire-Eaters, Fifteenth-Century Fiends, Magick Moste Evil. Even better is seeing the faces of students taking out these books, ranging from stoic and stone-faced, to sweating buckets of nervous teenage hormones all over the floor.

I enjoy shelf-reading. It's a good memory exercise for a library employee, I always feel more familiar with our library afterwards and I can direct students to what they need much quicker than usual. Madam Pince has memorized the entire library and can list shelf sequences in her sleep. (I've heard her muttering during naps, things that sound suspiciously like decimal numbers...)

I've still got a way to go until I'm that accustomed to the collection.

The Hogwarts Library System

Here in the Hogwarts Library, we want to support the education of young witches and wizards the best we can. This means that, like any library, students can borrow certain books from our collection. Not every book is imbued with magical traits- a lot of our books are very similar to what would be found in a Muggle library- minus the subject matter. However, in recent years, due to new laws being passed in the Muggle Liaison Office at the Ministry of Magic, we’ve had the ability to order a small collection of popular Muggle books for the reading enjoyment of Hogwarts students. These can also be utilized by students currently enrolled in the Muggle Studies course at Hogwarts. All books in the general collection can be borrowed for a time period of two weeks. Books located in the restricted section can be accessed during library hours only by students in fifth year and higher- and the books cannot be removed from the library without written and signed permission from the Head of their House.

In the Muggle world, a lack of tracking and retrieval Charms means that many library books can disappear forever due to 'permanent borrowing'; we avoid this because Hogwarts library books automatically disappear from the patron's possession when the allotted borrowing time runs up.

Unfortunately, there have been several notable instances of first-years that were not made aware of this charm that come to my desk in tears over “lost” books that are in fact, safe and intact back on the shelf. Every year I need to re-explain these library policies to misinformed little kids because there is no way any student is coming up to Madam Pince about a missing book, even if you paid them in galleons. The fear of death or loss of limb is too great.

- One of my personal favorite reading spots -

Our books are classified following the Wizarding Standard Decimal system, very similar to the muggle “Dewey” system but with different categories for magical subjects. They are sorted quite logically on our shelves for ease of use.

I’m often in the stacks, and although there are spells for shelving books (and I do use them for the higher shelves) I sometimes enjoy manually shelving books as a way to have something to do with my hands. Doing everything with magic saves a lot of time, and with all that extra time I end up bored with nothing to do but deal with petty conflicts among students. Scaring off troublemakers is Madam Pince’s forte anyways, and I’m always happy to sit back and watch her throw students out of the library.

We also have a hold system for popular books, copies of textbooks for two-hour loan periods, and even a special interlibrary loan system in place. It’s not often used by students, and the Hogwarts library is so vast with books on almost anything, it’s exceedingly rare a student would ever come up empty after looking through our collection. Last time we had to order something from outside Hogwarts, it was a rare book on bewitchment for the Headmistress McGonagall. Other than that, we don’t exactly advertise that option to students, although I’m sure if they asked we could help them out.

One of the lovely Madam Pince’s favorite activities is checking recently returned books for damages. She particularly enjoys doing this right in front of the student who just returned it, pausing between actions to shoot piercing glances at them and cluck reproachfully at any specks of dust or dog-eared pages. Of course, we need to do this, but I don’t know if embarrassing students is entirely necessary. But I don’t mention it to Madam Pince, why deprive the old woman of one of her most beloved pastimes?

Finally, although we don’t do it often, we sometimes weed through the collection to maybe remove some books that aren’t needed by students. This is very rare, as almost every book is useful to someone, but old editions of textbooks and outdated texts turn up and need to be weeded out. We’re always bringing in new material to keep our collection as number one in wizarding libraries.

Well, that’s a general rundown of the circulation techniques in our Hogwarts library. I hope this post has shed some light on the systems we use and the way we provide service to the new generation of witches and wizards. 

Until next time, dear readers! 

Library Policy & Regulations

Working at Hogwarts as a library technician has its advantages and disadvantages. Although Madam Pince loves nothing so much as haranguing misbehaving students; I also often have to intervene to reinforce library guidelines in the event of students causing mayhem – thus, producing the disadvantages of my job. This brings to me to the point of my blog post today: Hogwarts Library regulations & policy! 

Regrettably, neither you nor I possess the ability to sit and read the endless list of tedious library regulations (made considerably longer and stricter when Madam Pince took her position as head librarian.) Nevertheless, I’ll skim over some of my favourite general guidelines, solely because I have some humorous stories to share about them.

Hogwarts Library Regulation 1 Section 2.5: Our library has standards for noise, (obviously.) Given that we are an Academic library, Madam Pince is adamant in keeping traditional library values and policies in check. Quiet collaboration among students is expected and therefore tolerated. However, if your noise level becomes too loud, you can expect the wrath of Madam Pince! Like, perhaps, being inflicted by the infamous leek jinx. (A jinx which causes a great production of leeks to come out of the victim’s ears,) Ridiculous, I know, but pretty handy. 

Hogwarts Library Regulation 2 Section 1: Stealing. You can assume that the library has a strict policy on stealing, given the fact that the policy on noise was quite strict. Stealing is highly prohibited. Students attempting to run off with the intention of keeping a library book have been known to suffer from finger-removing jinxes! A punishment as old as dawn, Madam Pomfrey can mend up your missing finger straight away – but then the guilty student will likely face suspension from the library. (Who would ever want that?) 

Hogwarts Library Regulation 3 Section 1: As I mentioned above, Pince sticks to old library policy. This means: (to my dismay,) all food and drinks apart from water must be consumed outside the library. Heck, before I came along, Madam Pince wouldn’t even allow water! – That’s an advantage of working as a Hogwarts library technician; you possess the capability to persuade Madam Pince to relax rules a little bit here and there. Despite this, I’m not even allowed to eat my bag of Doritos in the library during my break without Pince berating me; not only for eating in a book environment, but she also goes off mumbling under her breath about “malodorous muggle foods!” I know what you’re thinking, “if food or drink was spilled onto a book, couldn’t there be a spell just to clean up the mess and fix the book?” Well, dear reader, yes and no. Some of our ancient books in the restricted section are highly sensitive; any spells used on them can seriously distress them and even injure the witch or wizard attempting to clean it! Books in the magical world are largely different from those in the muggle world and are better to just be read and not fiddled around with. Trust me.

Hogwarts Library Regulation 4 Section 4: Prank paraphernalia. Now, if I was in charge and worked here as the head Hogwarts librarian, I would be totally cool with the odd prank here and there. However, back in the day, Fred and George Weasley decided to pursue their passion and found their joke shop, Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Thus, leading to almost half of the school population releasing pygmy puffs to wander throughout the campus – or throwing up on each other as a result of skiving snackboxes. Wizard Wheezes products are largely prohibited in the classroom and the castle halls, allowing it to be less difficult to keep out of the library. This isn’t a new regulation, though. Before the Weasley prank products, were Zonko’s Joke Shop products, founded centuries ago! This means that prank paraphernalia has been forbidden from our library for centuries – but if you’re sneaky, you might be able to get in a few love potions or participate in some innocent espionage with the notorious extendable ears. 

Hogwarts Library Regulation 5 Section 8: Student conflict. Keeping fights and conflicts under control for the most part is relatively easy here.  It is common knowledge in the wizarding world that the use of spells outside classrooms for underage wizards is actually illegal. Thankfully, this eliminates frequent spell duels among aggressive students. Nevertheless, this does not prevent them from occasionally throwing punches or yelling minor threats at each other (which reminds me of my muggle childhood!) Actually, my favorite conflict management story comes from last May, When James Sirius Potter (yes, the oldest son of the famous Harry James Potter,) initiated a fight with the Slytherin quidditch chaser, Cadmus Finnigan. Next thing I knew, Cadmus was on top of James, beating him with his History of Magic textbook! I handled this one, shooing Madam Pince away and ordering the two boys to report to the Headmistress, Professor McGonagall.  It was a big day for me, handling my first student conflict without the help of Madam Pince!

                My spiel on Hogwarts library policy has come to an end. I hope you feel learned in the art of assertiveness; it’s a highly useful quality in a wizarding school library. My current endeavour is to aid Madam Pince in lessening her forcefulness of heeding every rule. I know this might be far-fetched, but I even hope to help her conquer her abhorrence of loud, rambunctious students! Wish me luck on this mission – I’ll keep you all updated.