[HPforGrownups] Why Wizards Need Eckeltricity ( was: Registries)

[Jenett]

No: HPFGUIDX 30074

On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Barb wrote:
> While it's possible that the trio simply weren't aware of how to 
> magically search the library when they were trying to track down 
> Nicolas Flamel or a method for Harry to breath underwater for the 
> second task, I think that a fast magical method for doing this is 
> unlikely to be revealed by JKR.  

I tend to think that if there *were* such a system, Hermione, at the very 
least, would know about it, given the amount of time she spends in the 
library. Maybe not be able to use it, but know it existed. 

And it's not that non-computer methods don't work - they do, and they
worked for hundreds and hundreds of years, depending on how you count
library history - they're just time-consuming and rather tedious.
Particularly if you're working with files you don't know yourself. If 
you're working with material you know well (either in your subject of 
speciality, or with books you've worked with a lot), it gets a lot easier. 

I work as a library paraprofessional in a high school library with about 
15,000 volumes. I've been working here for a school year and a third or so 
now, and about 70% of the time, if someone asks me where a book is, or 
where a book on a particular subject is, I can locate it without using the 
catalog. But I'm also the person who did inventory on all of those books 
last year, and I've handled most items in the collection at least twice, 
if not much more often, and I've got coursework and other training to back 
it up. And I read fast, and tend to scan books when I process new ones, or 
come across something particularly intriguing on the shelving cart, which 
most people both don't do and can't get away with easily.

My point is: for people who use the resources every day - or even every 
couple of weeks - it's not very tedious for them to be working with 
scrolls or parchments or books without indices. But for someone who both 
doesn't know what they're looking for (just the mention of someone's name, 
in some unpleasant or blackmailable context) *and* who isn't familiar with 
the resource, it's a painfully lengthy task. You've got to both know all 
the available possible lists you *could* check (of which, I rather 
suspect, there are quite a few, particularly when you count in whatever 
trial records there might be from the original bout of trials), *and* then 
read through looking for a particular name, which is tiring work. 

I think the other reason it's painfully clear that no such database exists 
is that you'd expect Lucius Malfoy, or someone else in his circle, such as 
it is, to know if there were one, and if it *were* easy to check, to 
simply check on the new DADA teacher. I can see Malfoy doing it if it were 
simple, but as there's no apparent noise made about it until quite late in 
the proceedings, it can't be anything as simple as say, our 
sex-crime-conviction databases, and probably, therefore, not something he 
deems worth to spend time on (or detail someone else to spend time on). 

-Jenett