Or, as FairportFan pointed out yesterday, it could be that as long as she’s in the Library, she can read anything, regardless of the language it’s written in. Hey, this is magic, not technology as we know it, remember?
Actually, what i meant was that, as long as she has the key to the TARDIS … i mean, a “connection” to the Library, the Library will translate its books (or other media) for her, even if she’s not physically in the Library.
An interesting question: The library is not located in this continuum, so technically it is not connected to our time stream. So the question is WHEN is the library? Does it contain books that we would perceive as written in the future, or are they locked from our access somehow to prevent paradoxes?
She specified non-fiction. These are the technical manuals and enginerring specs for the cells and probably devices that used them. Probably not many of those were written in books. Stone walls more likely. lol. I don’t think the library collects those.
Yes. You know what it’s like with google; you send it something like “Search for vimana cells, websites older than one year, in English, not involving motorcycles.” Then you get 48,443 hits, an advertisement for rechargable batteries, and a recipe for muffins.
Aliens, or viama cells that were used by humans in other places. If the wormholes span the galaxy, there may be other human settlements out there.
It’s been 10,000 years since the Chimera’s rampage, (not counting the Calendar machine resets, they affected the whole galaxy). Wonder what any Lanthian offshoot civilizations have been up too?
Maybe it’s not alien vimana cells so much as vimana cells that pertain to another dimension. I mean, if vimana cells relate to Indians (I’m assuming the country, not the Native Americans), then by narrowing the search to Earth, she could be weeding out religious texts that still would have been classified as “non-fiction”. *shrugs* Maybe.
so… what you’re saying is that you really need a lost key fob finder finder! just make sure you don’t lose that one, as it’ll be a bit longer before we can invent the lost key fob finder finder finder!…
Not much worse than the stack that the average high-school senior has to haul around in her backpack these days.
I wonder how many books the Library will let you check out simultaneously… whether you hit a limit, and the extras “go all dust-bunny”? Is there a two-week limit on inter- or intra-Library book loans?
Seems to me that the “late fees” from this particular institution might be rather fearsome.
Handy… saves having to carry them back down the street.
It’d be a bummer, though, if you had left your carefully-written notes in the book, and forgot to take them out before the Library said Plugh and the books faded away again.
Ohh thinking like that
would Monica have access to her own writings?
I mean Brandi got hers from Phixx.
Heck I have done searches on my own name (mainly because my name was mentioned in a CD thanks i had – must be a different paula but was sooo cool to read it!!) so I suspect saying ‘give me all books written by Paula’ would be one of my first searches ^^
It looks to me as if she had to do a quick leg cross-over to prevent the books landing on her right foot. That or she performed a 90 degree body twist without lifting her legs.
Would that mean that hell is a library where every book has the spine cracked, pages ripped out, images defaced, and the words are in a language that you don’t understand?
Yes, the original is a gem.
I think I’ve seen the remake, but don’t actually remember much about it…
That and “The Magic Christian” are two of my fave British comedies…
No, I think you’re thinking of that popular song from the late 1950s or early 1960s…
“Oh, please,
stay with me,
Vimana!”
Apologies if this shows up twice… I think I hit a race condition in WordPress when I posted it the first time, due to a collision with FairportFan’s comment postedcat the same moment.
Oh wait no, that’s just computers. Because that’s all the library is good for anymore. I mean seriously; even the people waiting to get on one of the computers don’t bother to pick up a book and read something while they wait. They’d just rather sit there and stare ahead.
my library doesn’t even stock the classics any more.
HG Wells is not on the shelves..
Did not check Agitha Christie but I suspect not.
If (like mine) they only stock the newbie books such as “how i annoyed peter andre and my other husbands and made a packet of cash” by Jordan (i could be wrong on the title) I would avoid the books also
We’ve seen the Library speak verbally in the past… in particular, it spoke to Phix and Nudge when it appointed them as co-guardians of the Library and said that they were free to come and go as they wished.
It’s definitely interesting that it’s speaking to Monica directly… I don’t think we know whether all Library visitors are so privileged.
The odd thing is Phix indicated that was the first time in all those thousands of years the Library spoke. Was she unaware of the search feature? Not likely.
We could duplicate such a thing today had we a holodeck type device. The closest we could come now would be be to use virtual reality glasses and motion sensing. The thing lacking would be the tactile feel of the book. Someone is working on gloves that are supposed to give that sensation, however.
To me, it’s just a gimick. It’s much better simply to be able to do a search on a screen. You can get right down to the word by that method. Don’t have to lug faux books around either. This method, while cool, would get old after a while. You would just get used to it and it would lose it’s dramatic effect pretty quick. Sort of like HD TV. The only good thing about it would be that it can cross cultural boundries. The book form would likely be familiar to many of different tech levels.
It’s in the works. For years people have been thinking about displays, and entire pad computers, that you could fold up like an handkerchief and stuff into your pocket. It’s not quite here yet. But when it’s possible, one of the obvious formats is the book with pages that show whatever they need to (for example, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer). If you own an iPhone you can use google and Siri together for pretty much exactly the interface experience Monica just had.
DonMartin would have given us something like: Flappita Flappita Flappita Flappita THPLAPTH. Or maybe something like FAGROONklubbleklubbleklubble, which he established as the definitive sound of a collapsing supermarket.
I AM OFFICIALLY JEALOUS! Oh how I wish Google came in book form… i would much rather turn a page than click a mouse…and that is a very backwards premise for my age group…
(hey if I’m gunna dream, i’m gunna dream big…)
But can it tell us of Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters, the planet Bethselamon, or what is the method used to make the hostess’ undergarments jump three feet to the left?
(of course one can go to h2g2.com and find that out)
ah search parameters refined. Good job M!
Oh look! On top of the stack is :
“How I Did It” by Mayhuel
Handy, that!
BAHAHAHAHA!!!
Ten internets for you sir XD
I wish my libraries search function was that user friendly.
Well if it is not yet try make it better
She should have limited to languages she can read initially.
Or, as FairportFan pointed out yesterday, it could be that as long as she’s in the Library, she can read anything, regardless of the language it’s written in. Hey, this is magic, not technology as we know it, remember?
Actually, what i meant was that, as long as she has the key to the TARDIS … i mean, a “connection” to the Library, the Library will translate its books (or other media) for her, even if she’s not physically in the Library.
Oh.
You, sir/madam, win an internet for a TARDIS reference. Good times, good times…
(I really shouldn’t post comments when half asleep and running on two hours of sleep after being awake for twenty, should I…?)
An interesting question: The library is not located in this continuum, so technically it is not connected to our time stream. So the question is WHEN is the library? Does it contain books that we would perceive as written in the future, or are they locked from our access somehow to prevent paradoxes?
boo-yah (lean) + love the sound effects. Now to break out the crumbly apple pie and start reading.
No crumbs in the books please!
“Chugchugchugchug … slump.” Drinking in the knowledge you mean?
That’s a smaller stack than I figured it would be.
OH WELL
She specified non-fiction. These are the technical manuals and enginerring specs for the cells and probably devices that used them. Probably not many of those were written in books. Stone walls more likely. lol. I don’t think the library collects those.
Or perhaps it does, but in a useable “on paper” form. It is a magic library after all.
Yes. You know what it’s like with google; you send it something like “Search for vimana cells, websites older than one year, in English, not involving motorcycles.” Then you get 48,443 hits, an advertisement for rechargable batteries, and a recipe for muffins.
Ooo. Muffin?
Me loove muffin!
Om nom nom…
And now that you’ve mentioned it on the internet, google knows you like muffins.
Me like cookie, too!
To Fairportfan- Over here in the corner we have Tea, cookies, and assorted pasteries. please don’t fight over the books or the food.
I dunno–her stack looks pretty big to me. . . .
Oh, you meant the BOOKS!
…Cute…
Well that narrowed things right down.
“Pertaining to Earth”? There are books by/about alien Vimana Cells!?
And a lot of ‘em, by the look of it….
And, apparently it’s a steam powered library.
“Behold, the power – of STEAM!!”
heh,
got vimana, will travel…
Better safe than sorry.
Aliens, or viama cells that were used by humans in other places. If the wormholes span the galaxy, there may be other human settlements out there.
It’s been 10,000 years since the Chimera’s rampage, (not counting the Calendar machine resets, they affected the whole galaxy). Wonder what any Lanthian offshoot civilizations have been up too?
Maybe it’s not alien vimana cells so much as vimana cells that pertain to another dimension. I mean, if vimana cells relate to Indians (I’m assuming the country, not the Native Americans), then by narrowing the search to Earth, she could be weeding out religious texts that still would have been classified as “non-fiction”. *shrugs* Maybe.
The library existed before man did. I believe Paul made a mention of something like that before.
Welcome back! Monica is just adorable standing next to that stack of references.
Golly, M looks so cute in that last panel…
Seconded!
=.)
Now if we could just rig the thing to keep track of car keys …
CHUGGGAchugchugchugCLUNK
(pamphlet floats down in front of your feet)
“Get a spare set, doofus.”
no , you miised the ads for ‘key finder fob’ – snap your fingers, and it appears right in your pocket.. make sure the keys are attached!!
I HAVE a spare set! I lose BOTH sets, dammit!
so… what you’re saying is that you really need a lost key fob finder finder! just make sure you don’t lose that one, as it’ll be a bit longer before we can invent the lost key fob finder finder finder!…
Well — at least the pile is only as tall as she is…
Not very tall at all, then…
Not much worse than the stack that the average high-school senior has to haul around in her backpack these days.
I wonder how many books the Library will let you check out simultaneously… whether you hit a limit, and the extras “go all dust-bunny”? Is there a two-week limit on inter- or intra-Library book loans?
Seems to me that the “late fees” from this particular institution might be rather fearsome.
no late fees, they just disappear back to the library!
Handy… saves having to carry them back down the street.
It’d be a bummer, though, if you had left your carefully-written notes in the book, and forgot to take them out before the Library said Plugh and the books faded away again.
my guess is the notes would stay, and the book wouldn’t. unless you wrote them IN the book. which in that case, you deserve it.
that’s OK too.. remember that “The Library” keeps a copy of ALL things written! all you’d need to do is to check out your OWN NOTES!
Ohh thinking like that
would Monica have access to her own writings?
I mean Brandi got hers from Phixx.
Heck I have done searches on my own name (mainly because my name was mentioned in a CD thanks i had – must be a different paula but was sooo cool to read it!!) so I suspect saying ‘give me all books written by Paula’ would be one of my first searches ^^
Love the pose in the final panel. Great strip, always.
Actually I think the stack makes her look Taller.
…..And Sexier! Or is that just what a week away from M and the Girls does to you?
Potentially…but I think it’s the hat…combined with the short skirt.
Oh, and am I the only one that imagined a golf club in her hands in the final panel?
I actually had a similar thought–but I saw a croquet mallet, for some reason.
With that hat? Golf, definitely.
It looks to me as if she had to do a quick leg cross-over to prevent the books landing on her right foot. That or she performed a 90 degree body twist without lifting her legs.
Http://electronictiger.net/avail/putt.png
Hmmm: http://electronictiger.net/avail/putt.png
Thought so. The parser on this forum is case-sensitive.
Safer to use an explicit tag, I think.
Very nice work on the golf-artwork!
That’s not a golfing outfit.
(there’s a distinct lack of awful plaids)
If i’d known you wanted awful plaids, i’d have put some in.
BTW – you can’t see it (you couldn’t actually see it in the original graphic i lifted it from), but that is a Hello Kitty putter.
That’s not the weirdest ‘Hello Kitty’ officially licensed merch I’ve seen…
LIKE!
Ok, I’m in a total librarian swoon, here! I wanna play in that library
That makes two of us!
You would never get me out of there…ever. 
That’s a place I could happily starve to death in.
Just don’t break your glasses…
Twilight Zone! “All the time in the world” with Burgess Merideth. “It’s not fair!”
I’ve often thought of heaven as a complete library, with all pristine books, and a complete restaurant/coffee bar so you don’t have to leave.
(Am I a total nerd, or what??)
Would that mean that hell is a library where every book has the spine cracked, pages ripped out, images defaced, and the words are in a language that you don’t understand?
fire and brimstone visions have never bothered me
YOUR vision made me nervous…
That would be a good start. Add some really cranky librarians, and obnoxious patrons–with sniffles.
Nah – pristine bindings.
All mysteries.
Fiendishly clever mysteries.
With the last chapter missing.
(Ever see the original Bedazzled?)
Yes, the original is a gem.
I think I’ve seen the remake, but don’t actually remember much about it…
That and “The Magic Christian” are two of my fave British comedies…
I once heard that, to really hurt someone, you don’t just take away what they love. You give it back to them–broken.
So, Hell is a place whose entertainment system is stocked entirely with bad Hollywood remakes?
Oh.
Hey, God – I promise I’ll be Very Very Good!
Worse. They’re all on film and it breaks every few seconds. Plus the sproket holes are worn and it jumps all the time.
I’ve always assumed Hell would be personal.
What scares one person doesn’t bother the another.
Maybe in the ancient times being burned alive was a real and tangible danger so would be a good thing to say to relate to people.
Me too
I squee when i visit a ‘waterstones’ or a decently stocked library.
I would quite possibly die from happiness were i to visit this one
Desk upon request?
Vimana? Wasn’t she a character in Scooby Doo?
No – you’re thinking of the red-headed duck … you know, Daphene.
velma
daphne was the blonde
No, I think you’re thinking of that popular song from the late 1950s or early 1960s…
“Oh, please,
stay with me,
Vimana!”
No, I think you’re thinking of that popular song from the late 1950s or early 1960s…
“Oh, please,
stay with me,
Vimana!”
Apologies if this shows up twice… I think I hit a race condition in WordPress when I posted it the first time, due to a collision with FairportFan’s comment postedcat the same moment.
This song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a_T3U1rg2I
No, I was thinking of
Diana by Paul Anka.
“I’m so young, and you’re so old…”
Hey! Whatta tryin’ to say there Dave?
Ah ha! I just identified where Big Daddy got one of their arrangements from!
…and a Big Daddy discography, with the sources of their arrangements appended to each song – in a sort of cryptic crossword clue style.
Its not that you search. It’s HOW you search…
Using what she said from the last post …
And with what she’s saying here – looks like she has a lot of practice with/from Google.
“…and a cup of coffee while you’re at it…”
I would cheerfully give everything I own for a library card like Monica’s.
With that librarian, I’d be *very* careful to return all books on time
If you specified “non-fiction”, I wonder how many of those books were considered fiction (or, “rantings of a crackpot loon”) by “normal people”.
Super Smart Library knows whose version of (non)fiction you mean.
yknow
if the original library did this – no wonder humans got banned from it
if, when I die, heaven is like ‘when dreams come true’ this library is sooo gonna be in my part of it ^^
no, they just think its another empty warehouse….
- nothing to see, until it recognizes you!
Een Lawntees, de lybrery reads YOU!
Nicely put Jaber.
Hey, that’s just how my library works!
Oh wait no, that’s just computers. Because that’s all the library is good for anymore. I mean seriously; even the people waiting to get on one of the computers don’t bother to pick up a book and read something while they wait. They’d just rather sit there and stare ahead.
*sigh*
my library doesn’t even stock the classics any more.
HG Wells is not on the shelves..
Did not check Agitha Christie but I suspect not.
If (like mine) they only stock the newbie books such as “how i annoyed peter andre and my other husbands and made a packet of cash” by Jordan (i could be wrong on the title) I would avoid the books also
Haha!! Love the disembodied voice of the library.
If I was in this library, I think I’d be tempted to try and actually hold a conversation with it. XD
Are we sure that the Library isn’t part of Castle Heterodyne?
Castle Heterodyne would have delivered the books with an armored monster, surprising trap door, or steam catapult.
Or all three at once!
Wyvern- I’d be more worried about how the rejected tomes were removed. Stay out of the lines of fire.
I hope I wasn’t the only one who was a bit startled when the library actually responded verbally to Mon.
We’ve seen the Library speak verbally in the past… in particular, it spoke to Phix and Nudge when it appointed them as co-guardians of the Library and said that they were free to come and go as they wished.
It’s definitely interesting that it’s speaking to Monica directly… I don’t think we know whether all Library visitors are so privileged.
The odd thing is Phix indicated that was the first time in all those thousands of years the Library spoke. Was she unaware of the search feature? Not likely.
We could duplicate such a thing today had we a holodeck type device. The closest we could come now would be be to use virtual reality glasses and motion sensing. The thing lacking would be the tactile feel of the book. Someone is working on gloves that are supposed to give that sensation, however.
To me, it’s just a gimick. It’s much better simply to be able to do a search on a screen. You can get right down to the word by that method. Don’t have to lug faux books around either. This method, while cool, would get old after a while. You would just get used to it and it would lose it’s dramatic effect pretty quick. Sort of like HD TV. The only good thing about it would be that it can cross cultural boundries. The book form would likely be familiar to many of different tech levels.
“And besides, the grapes were probably sour.”
OK, since no one else has said it – that last panel is a data dump.
Nnngh.
Pay the Pun Chamberpot, dude (I won’t say “Make a deposit in”, even though I’m thinking it. Uh…)
Don’t you know of the danger in making puns about the pun jar?! You might set up an infinite causal loop that could engulf us all!
Gotta. A few months ago I was condemned to suffocate in the Pun Jar, for having committed a really terrible/good one.
Generating a meta-reference pun loop, and converting the Pun Jar into a Klein bottle, was the only way out.
I promise, I’ll put the Universe back where it belongs, when I’m done playing with it
It’s in the works. For years people have been thinking about displays, and entire pad computers, that you could fold up like an handkerchief and stuff into your pocket. It’s not quite here yet. But when it’s possible, one of the obvious formats is the book with pages that show whatever they need to (for example, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer). If you own an iPhone you can use google and Siri together for pretty much exactly the interface experience Monica just had.
This time I had the cultural flashback of Don Martin, for the onomatopoeia of the library. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Martin_%28cartoonist%29
DonMartin would have given us something like: Flappita Flappita Flappita Flappita THPLAPTH. Or maybe something like FAGROONklubbleklubbleklubble, which he established as the definitive sound of a collapsing supermarket.
I read that as
Doc Martin.
got a slightly different thought process
I AM OFFICIALLY JEALOUS! Oh how I wish Google came in book form… i would much rather turn a page than click a mouse…and that is a very backwards premise for my age group…
(hey if I’m gunna dream, i’m gunna dream big…)
whoops that last line didn’t get deleted from my edit… ignore whats in the parentheses…
what do you mean “edit”?? you can’t edit your posts here…
as far as i know that is…
kinda like ‘the hitchhikers guide to the internet’?
*cricket* *cricket*
i thought that season was over?
the seem to be playing rugby now..
And New Zealand won the cup by beating France . Much joy in Christchurch now – took their minds off the earthquake .
Is it just me – or is Paul a little tardy this morning .
But can it tell us of Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters, the planet Bethselamon, or what is the method used to make the hostess’ undergarments jump three feet to the left?
(of course one can go to h2g2.com and find that out)
Good thing she didn’t ask for all the dangerous creatures of Fourecks!
