This post is the opinion of Netanel Ganin and is in no way to be construed as an official communication from any section of any institution.
S01, E02 – The Harvest
Link to Jenny Trout recap/analysis
In this ep we get our first look at “Giles doesn’t get computers, and Willow does get computers”
This will be a long-running trait for both of them until ‘computers’ is replaced by ‘magic’ in terms of Willow-skills. I’m not sure Giles will ever come around to computers though…
Later, Principal Flutie catches the Buffster sneaking off campus for some slayage and the following exchange occurs
But Flutie knows that ‘sending teens to get a book from the store’ is not a sensible collection development policy. So he doesn’t fall for it.
S01, E03 – The Witch
Link to Jenny Trout recap/analysis
Alright so there’s a witch on the loose — how can we find her with library science? Violate patron privacy of course!
No Willow, don’t!
There’s a lot going on in this scene:
- Amy didn’t actually end up being the one who borrowed the books, it’s just a gag for showing Xander perving on semi-nude engravings.
- Would Giles [who knows magic is real and dangerous] really put spell books into the circulating collection?
- Willow next states that Xander *currently* has several witchy books checked out — why not have him earlier in the episode drop some witch knowledge and act smug before the reveal on why he’d really borrowed those books
- When Willow later hacks morgue records, Giles makes a big show of “I didn’t see this, I wasn’t here” but when Willow violates patron privacy he doesn’t make a peep!
- Most importantly: do not store borrowing history [though that wouldn’t help in this case as he currently has them out] but check with your systems librarian and see if your ILS is storing patron’s history. If you don’t have it, they can’t subpoena it.
Once the Scoobies know that Amy’s the witch and Buffy gets hit by the bloodstone vengeance spell, Giles lays down what the next step is to reverse her magic.
So I’m a big believer in the power of books, and I know Giles is too, to an even greater degree. But why do they actually need the book? We’re going to see magic a lot more in coming seasons but this is the only time anyone ever says that you need the specific book that the witch used to cast the spell to undo it.
Do you also need the exact item she used? I mean Giles knows the name of the spell “Bloodstone Vengeance”, surely the counter spell to that shows up in more than one book.
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