In 1986, Mississippi Public Broadcasting created a show so wild that many of us who watched it as kids thought we had imagined it in a fever dream. Tomes & Talismans was a 13-part television series that was designed to educate schoolchildren about how to find library resources, but with a dark, complex plotline: at the end of the 21st century, an alien race called "the Wipers" colonizes a polluted and overcrowded Earth, destroying data technology. But that's just the prelude! One hundred years after that, a librarian named Ms. Bookhart is the only human left on the planet, and must teach another alien race called "the Users" to use the resources of the last library on Earth to find a way to defeat the Wipers.
I was never one of those kids who always knew they wanted to be a librarian, but this series really made an impact on me after watching it in my elementary school's library in the fifth grade. I'm sure it helped guide me to a love of science fiction (I only wish I had had access to Doctor Who back then!). Library workers and Dewey fans will find a lot to love in Tomes & Talismans, especially in episode five, which is all about the DDC.
Mississippi Public Broadcasting is hosting an event on Thursday October 17th to celebrate the series and they'll be making episodes available for streaming. Episodes will be available online for free until November 17th. The show is worth a watch, if only for the incredible synth music of the intro and the truly fantastic 1980s hairstyles.
Comments