Timeline for Why is Hogwarts Library so badly organized?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
26 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 15, 2016 at 16:04 | vote | accept | vap78 | ||
| Dec 15, 2016 at 14:56 | comment | added | Kevin | Guys, spells have to be developed, just like software needs to be developed. I know most people don't think about it, but a search engine is massively complicated, not something that just comes with having technology at all. In the same way a search engine spell wouldn't come with having magic. I'd assume developing a "search for a name in a book collection" spell would take lots of research as well. | |
| Dec 15, 2016 at 10:51 | comment | added | RemcoGerlich | @karhell: when it was launched it was so good it made the competition obsolete immediately, it was indistinguishable from magic. So magic would have worked. | |
| Dec 15, 2016 at 6:33 | comment | added | mtraceur | So what I've learned from this comment section, is that Accio is like a physical google search. You specify the query in your mind, and the magic somehow magically figures out what items match it. | |
| Dec 14, 2016 at 20:49 | comment | added | user64742 | I would like to point in quite a heavy manner that all they new was Nicholas Flamel's name.If there was an index,then that would mean he was a major role in that book's content or he authored it.Let's assume that Flamel neither wrote a book nor had any written about him within Howarts.He might be a minor footnote as one of the several people to own the Philosopher's Stone over thousands of years. Depending on the depth of the history,Flamel might only have a paragraph written about him. He's famous to us but what if the fame goes to some Greek such as Euclid or Plato for living 3000 years? | |
| Dec 14, 2016 at 12:44 | comment | added | xDaizu |
@ArturoTorresSánchez I'm not sure how efficient Google Search was in the 90s, though. Fair point, though I'd argue that efficient is not as important compared with effective. As long as it is effective, you could leave the search computing overnight and check the results in the morning :)
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| Dec 14, 2016 at 9:06 | comment | added | user28875 | Harry and co were also, what, 12/13 in the first book? Their researching skills are not going to be on the same level as an adult's. The "pick books at random" sounds quite like a Ron-strategy. Perhaps Hermione probably would have been better than the others, but I doubt she had much experience in magical libraries, only muggle ones. Which leads us to the next question - why not just ask an adult for help? | |
| Dec 14, 2016 at 8:47 | comment | added | deworde | @coteyr Fortunately for suspension of disbelief, the skill pool available tops out at the maximum research skills of a very bright 10 year old girl with no background in wizardry, a wizarding native with a mediocre academic record and Harry, who combines the worst of both worlds, being both academically average, and a non-wizarding native. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 23:35 | comment | added | Toast | @Anthony Grist, though in that particular instance "Accio" was a spell they wouldn't learn for another three years, so they'd need to learn the spell before they could use it to find anything. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 18:10 | comment | added | coteyr | I remember the good ol' fasion card catalog. Sure the computerized card catalogs are better these days, but for hundreds - thousands of years people got by with just the card catalog. And yes you could find some horribly obscure references using it. It just took a bit of skill. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 15:55 | comment | added | anaximander | I'm torn on this. On one hand, as someone who has searched libraries using a card index on numerous occasions to find very specific books, I have to assert that efficient searching did exist pre-Google. On the other hand, that experience taught me that some things are way easier to find than others, and often you progress by finding synonyms and related topics to help narrow the field or find what you're after by other routes, and the trio were unable to do this - until Harry found the mention of the Philosopher's Stone, at which point Hermione found him easily, which fits with my experiences. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 15:07 | comment | added | vap78 | @Himarm looking in the wrong place is an indication for a problem. A well-organized library will allow you to find the relevant books for a certain name or topic. Think of it as a primitive version of Google with lots of manual work but it is still much more efficient compared to reading the books one by one. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:48 | comment | added | karhell | @ArturoTorresSánchez Given Google Search was launched in 1997, I'll go ahead and say "not very efficient" :P | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:42 | comment | added | Arturo Torres Sánchez | @xDaizu, I'm not sure how efficient Google Search was in the 90s, though. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:42 | comment | added | Himarm | "‘And no wonder we couldn’t find Flamel in that Study of Recent Developments in Wizardry,’ said Ron. ‘He’s not exactly recent if he’s six hundred and sixty-five, is he?’" | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:38 | comment | added | Anthony Grist | @BauceLawyerson It's definitely possible that "Accio books about Nicolas Flamel" would have worked - since apparently "Accio books about Horcruxes" works - had they been facing this particular problem a few years later. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:33 | comment | added | Himarm | @vap78 Dont forget in philosophers stone, they were looking in the completely wrong books anyway, Hermione says something about focusing on current wizards, because they believed him a contemporary of Dumbledore, and the reason they missed him is hes some 600 years old. So even if the indexes of the books had his name in them, the fact that they were looking in books 500 years off to begin with would still have blocked them from finding the answer till they broadened their timeline. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:27 | comment | added | EENN | @AnthonyGrist This sounds like the kind of problem magic could solve. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 13:04 | comment | added | flith | By this logic, magic (from which, after all, no sufficiently advanced technology is distinguishable) should be able to take a search phrase, and magically search all of the books to find the reference. The Hogwarts equivalent of Google Books. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 12:23 | comment | added | xDaizu |
The issue in Philosopher's Stone is that the problem they're trying to solve isn't one that any system of classifying or organising books would assist in solving. Wow wow WOOOOW, I'm gonna put up a [citation needed] for that "not any system" :P. Computers can brute force, cross-reference and algorithm-pass every book in existence if it's digitalized. That's why they need to adopt computers. ASAP. Just google book it, goddammit!
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| Dec 13, 2016 at 11:30 | comment | added | vap78 | @DJClayworth it is not the index of the book but the index of the library. I.e. if George Washington is mentioned in "History of the US Revolution" then in the INDEX entry of George Washington you will see a reference to the book with information about the section, shelf etc. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 11:00 | comment | added | Anthony Grist | With regards to the chocolate frog card: yes, but so what? Being famous doesn't mean he's written any books, or that any books have been written specifically about him, that the Hogwarts library includes. He may have written the magic equivalent of scientific research papers, but it appears the library doesn't include those (because they're probably too advanced or just totally irrelevant for the majority of students). It's entirely possible that, had the Trio looked in "Notable Wizards of the Last Millennia" (to my knowledge, not a real book) they would have found him with ease. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 10:58 | comment | added | DJClayworth | "if a certain name is mentioned in a book then the index will show it". Yes, but until you know which book he might be mentioned in you can't check the index of it. The problem is guessing which book might mention him, not checking if it does. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 10:52 | comment | added | Anthony Grist | @vap78 It has, admittedly, been many years since I stepped foot inside a library, but I don't recall them ever having a listing of every single thing mentioned inside every single book they have, and which books they're mentioned in. Possibly in an electronic system that would be possible, but when that information is taking up physical space and has to be updated by hand, it's simply not feasible. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 10:21 | comment | added | vap78 | Indexes are not limited to authors and titles. Usually if a certain name is mentioned in a book then the index will show it. Also Flamel is famous enough to be on a chocolate frog card. | |
| Dec 13, 2016 at 10:10 | history | answered | Anthony Grist | CC BY-SA 3.0 |