Why is Giles having his texts scanned?

[dragonyphoenix]

In the eight episode -  i, robot ... you, jane - why is Giles having his texts scanned? Jenny makes some comment about an index and a database but Giles hasn't gone near it. Given how much of a Luddite Giles is, the database is obviously not for him. He has no interest in using it at all.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I've never thought about it, but how about this: Sunnydale High doesn't have a principal at the moment (Flutie dead, Snyder not yet in town). So teachers can pretty much make up their own rules for a few weeks. So Jenny, being a technopagan and jealous of Giles' collection of occult texts, decides to invent the scanning program just so she can have her own digital copies of his books.

Which means the message of the episode is "E-book piracy is evil". 10 years before Amazon came out with the Kindle, even.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

*laughs and laughs and laughs* "E-book piracy raises demons! Don't do it, kids." I can just see the commercial now. Awesome. And actually a plausible reason for why the books are being scanned. It also explains why Jenny showed up to check if the DB index was okay. ;-)

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... maybe Willow wants them scanned so she can access them from home.


Gabrielle

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure Giles would agree just because Willow wants it though. The process has really messed up his library. Even a week later, if I'm recalling correctly, he still hasn't checked that one book long enough to realize the pages are blank means there's a demon loose.

[il_mio_capitano]

I'm pretty sure they reused the big book of moloch as a regular prop in season 6. I remember shouting 'but it will be blank' at the screen and thinking Giles was pretty careless to let be all demonic again.

I would have to rewatch to tell you which episode though.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Now I want to watch S6 so I can look for that book! ;-)

Monday, October 28

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User rahirah referenced to your post from Monday, October 28 (http://su-herald.livejournal.com/684241.html) saying: [...] [Fandom Discussion] Why is Giles having his texts scanned? [...]

[devo79.livejournal.com]

Plot device.

Pure and simple *shrugs*

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, I know that. Thing is, I'm writing a season 1 fanfic and I wanted an actual justification.

[devo79.livejournal.com]

Well, around this time schools started getting scanners. And public libraries started scanning those books that were of national importance (at least in Denmark).

I'm assuming that Giles had some very rare books. I don't remember if the books are being scanned for the school or maybe the watchers? If for the watchers it might be done to make the rarest books available to watchers around the world through some kind of database.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I had actually thought it could be a Council move, scanning rare books. And wouldn't it be just like them to make Giles organize that for his own books, on top of taking care of the Slayer, rather than sending in a team to handle it for him. ;-)

[devo79.livejournal.com]

Could it be that someone in the council wanted things to go badly for Giles and asked for that specific book to be scanned?

If they knew things would go to hell, they would have expected the situation to make Giles look like he couldn't handle his job as a watcher.

Maybe someone wanted to push Giles out of the way so they could get his job or maybe get better control of the slayer.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Oh my Goddess! That is an awesome idea. Giles is the big bad in this story so it could even be someone in the Council who has been hurt by Giles' machinations and/or who suspects Giles is up to no good.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Thanks!

[zooeys-bridge.livejournal.com]

As a librarian and archivist, I can attest to the fact that digitizing is a massive undertaking. It would have taken years and a lot of money to get a database up to anywhere near useful. All revved up though, it would be extremely useful to the Scoobies. How good was OCR software back in 1998? An index and keyword search would have been totally boss. I'm thinking about this way too hard.

(Jenny obviously wore the pants)

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Hmm, lets see. Many of the texts were written in languages other than English, most of them likely in archaic forms of said langues. Also, the texts were handwritten, or a good number of them were. I doubt even today's OCR software would be up to the task. Lovely idea though and it would have been unbelievably useful to them.

And while I'll go along with Jenny wearing the pants, they were still sniping at each other at the start of this episode so that can't be why he agreed to this.

[zooeys-bridge.livejournal.com]

True, though there are OCR programs for non-english text. and as long as a book is in the latin, it should still be searchable. true though that archaic textforms and more obscure languages wouldn't work. Scooby crowdsourced project perhaps?!

As for Jenny & Giles + pants, someone fic it! :P

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

That really does need to be written. I'm busy prepping for NaNoWriMo.

[zooeys-bridge.livejournal.com]

Maybe someone else will see the idea, cave, and do it :)

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

It could happen. That's how I got sucked in to writing Giles as the big bad of season 1 (story planning currently in process and probably on-hold during November).

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

DONE

Think of me as your scary, veiny, fic-giving good fairy.

http://clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com/13671.html

It is pure crack.

[zooeys-bridge.livejournal.com]

GET OUT

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

Yu huh! I could NOT resist that prompt.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Think of me as your scary, veiny, fic-giving good fairy.

Works for me!

[clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com]

See, it's like I told you - I'm Anya, making things better for the Fandom's scorned.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you saw that Jenny & GIles + pants (http://clockwork-hart1.livejournal.com/13671.html?style=mine) has been written. That was quick!