July | 2017 | CC Special Collections / Library Shenanigans

Not so much a shenanigan as an inaccuracy, and also not so much a shenanigan as a hellish montage of bedpans, shit, and gagging…

On the premiere episode of the seventh season of Game of Thrones, Samwell Tarly is a lowly book-reshelver and bedpan-emptier in the Maesters’ medieval-style library with chains on the shelves. Nice work, GoT, except your chains are completely non-functional, as this article explains.

Of course, if GoT had shown the chains doing their jobs — keeping the books secured to their shelves — then Sam wouldn’t have had any reshelving to do (and we would’ve had to witness even more bedpan-emptying, which, honestly, would’ve killed me). And more important (spoiler alert), he wouldn’t have had any chance of stealing a book out of the Citadel library and thereby, perhaps, saving everybody in the Seven Kingdoms from certain death at the hands of the White Walkers.

This PBS video shows functioning book chains.

Thanks, Lynne M. Thomas!

Special Collections has moved from Tutt South to the newly renovated Tutt Main (soon to be just plain Tutt). We are currently open by appointment only, hoping to return to regular hours by August 1 or earlier.

It was quite an odyssey getting the books and other materials, including a huge heavy map case, from one building to the other.

Special Collections Coordinator Amy Brooks managed 90% of the move while Curator Jessy Randall was cleverly out of town on a long-planned vacation.

Huge thanks to Amy, Tutt South wranglers Lesley Mackie and Diane Westerfield, and book escorts Sarah Bogard, Chris Curcio, Julia Drescher, Nicole Gresham, Lisa Lister, Annette Magneys, Mike McEvers, Courtney Morgan, Jeremy Nelson, Daryll Stevens, Claire Trissel, and Pam Willock. We could not have done it without each and every one of you. Congratulations to these hard workers and the PSI book movers on a successful and safe move!