This article explores portrayals of librarians in selected works of fiction, notably those involving mystery or detection. It begins with a summary of information derived from descriptions of about one hundred and twenty contemporary or recent works, then discusses particular stories involving detection or mystery, with occasional references to other genres. Librarians frequently appear in these works as protagonists or as major supporting characters detectives or villains, suspects or nuisances. In a substantial number of them, librarians figure as supporting characters as partners or foils for the protagonists. Lengthier treatments of the subject have included Gregg Sapps discussion of about fifty novels involving librarians as main characters. Sapp, 1987. Sapp provides brief characterisations of these protagonists, culled from the sources themselves, but does not attempt to synthesise the material in this sampler, or to draw inferences about the portrayals of librarians in various genres. Alison Hall, writing in Canadian Library Journal, discusses the image of librarians in Ecos The Name of the Rose, Bowes Between the Stacks, PD James A Taste for Death, Mortimers Rumpole and The Age of Miracles, Goodrums Carnage of the Realm, and other works of fiction. Reminding her readers that Batgirl was a librarian, Hall suggests librarians learn to laugh at the professions negative image, and that they act individually to improve it. Hall, 1992.

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