RE: Re: Lhankhor Mhy book protection

From: bernuetz.oliver_at_...
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 13:21:33 -0500

Oh I agree with you about LM in Sartar. I doubt there's many books there. Elsewhere I'll bet that every temple with a collection use its own system of cataloging their temples' collection and as soon as a new head sage takes over the whole damn collection is reorganized along the new sage's preferred system. Except of course for all the volumes that are stashed away in hidey holes to keep them safe from the incorrect and no doubt heretical classification scheme by their zealous guardians.

As far as realism goes we should adopt as much realism as we want. It's not Earth after all and if some want inns and libraries in Sartar what's the harm? (I'm certainly not proposing Melvil Dewey (my favourite take on him was the one in Duckman) or bibliometrics (shudder) in Glorantha). We can aim for a Hollywood level of realism (i.e. depict a period as people think it looked like) as opposed to a stricter academic level of realism (if that's not pretty subject too depending on the academic you're asking...)

It all depends on your tastes.

Oliver
-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Larsen [mailto:plarsen_at_...] Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 11:15 AM
To: HeroWars_at_yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: Re: Lhankhor Mhy book protection

At 11:45 AM -0500 3/11/02, bernuetz.oliver_at_... wrote:
>I think this is all very true but I'd hate to lose the old RQ style of LM
as
>well. My take on it is that the bookish, librarian, archivist style of LMs
>is a holdover from the influences of the EWF that has managed to survive in
>a few places. The two different camps disdain each other because the
>traditionalists can't index or read worth a damn while the bookish type
>don't have the well honed memories of the traditionalists.

      Fair enough, although I'll point out that indexing is not an ancient practice. If we insist on some degree of realism in cattle raising and stead-building practice, why should libraries get made up out of whole cloth?

      However, having said this, I think you are right -- LM in urbanized Esrolia, for example, think the clan LM lawspeakers and sages are ignorant buffoons, and the clan LM think the Esrolian sages are out of touch with the god's higher functions (like prophecy). My comments are largely directed at clan-based LM. Literacy is much more wide-spread in Esrolia, and the opportunities to read are greater (although the LM have had to get over their jealous "possession" of literacy there) -- there are also libraries of more than a couple dozen "volumes," and those libraries might actually contain volumes. I still doubt that there are a lot of modern library issues -- there will not be enough items for an elaborate classifications system. Something I can imagine being an issue is systems of labeling -- perhaps one chief priest has the sages go through and write reasonably elaborate "colophon tags" to identify everything in the collection. Some of these, of course, are wrong. The next Chief Priest has them removed, to prevent thieves and non-LM users (assuming they can even get to the stacks) finding things. The next Chief Priest thinks that's silly, and has the colophon tags reattached, but many have been lost and others are wrong and some get attached to the wrong documents and no one really remembers exactly what the shorthand symbols meant.... You can have most of the same fun without bringing Melvil Dewey to Glorantha.

Peter Larsen

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