50 Fictional Librarians, Ranked

40. Miriam Radford, Murder, She Wrote, “Murder Takes the Bus”

Home library: Not on this bus.

Special talents: Knitting, swooning, fangirling, swiping first editions

You always knew: One appearance by Blanche makes any episode a classic.

39. Betty Lou Perkins, The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag

Home library: every small town library outside of New Orleans

Special talents: Finding murder weapons, knowing an opportunity to get her husband’s attention when she sees one, cleaning up extremely well

On the poster: Bugsy, Capone, Clyde, Betty Lou Perkins?

38. Dr. Abigail Chase, National Treasure

Home library: the National Archives

Special talents: performing acrobatics in formalwear, treasure hunting, falling in love with kidnappers

Snotty retort: “Did Bigfoot take it?”

37. Connie Randall, No Man of Her Own

Home library: Glendale library

Special talents: Flipping coins, flipping cons, those eyes, Carole.

#same: “Sometimes I go out into the woods and scream, just to keep from bursting.”

36. The Loud Librarian, All That

Home library: unidentified library populated by teens and SHH! signs.

Special talents: Jackhammering, chainsaw operation, bowling, etc.

AKA: Mrs. Hushbaum

It’s ironic: “QUIET!!!!!!! THIS IS A LIBRARY!!!!!!!

35. Ardelia Lortz, The Library Policeman

Home library: Junction City Public Library

Special talents: Feeding on fear, forcing sad men to do her bidding, inhabiting humans, seduction

Run, Sam: “I’ve been in the business a long, long time, Sam. And they’re not renewable, so be sure to get them back by April sixth . . . Or else I’ll have to send the Library Policeman after you.”

34. The Librarian, “Quiet, Please” by Aimee Bender

Home library: Unknown town library, apparently basically unsupervised

Special talents: Creative grieving?

The crux of it: “She is amazed as she glances around to see how many attractive men there are that day. they are everywhere: leaning over the wood tables, straight-backed in the aisles, men flipping pages with nice hands. The librarian, on this day, the day of her father’s death, is overwhelmed by an appetite she has never felt before and she waits for another one of them to approach her desk.”

33. John Lewis, Only Two Can Play

Home library: Aberdarcy Library, Wales

Special talents: Failing at having an affair, being Peter Sellers

Fighting words: “You’re going to get it in a moment, boy-o, and not in blank verse either.”

Based on: Kingsley Amis’s That Uncertain Feeling

32. Lucy Hull, The Borrower

Home library: the Hannibal public library, Missouri

Special talents: Encouraging children to read, kidnapping

Time passes: “I hated that I’d started to look like a librarian. This wasn’t right. In college, I’d smoked things. My first car had angry bumper stickers. I came from a long line of revolutionaries.”

31. Nan Perry (and Alec Leamas, in a supporting role), The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

Home library: Bayswater Library for Psychic Research

Special talents: Mostly being a pawn, to be fair.

Her name was originally Liz Gold: John le Carré basically liked the film, but complained: “In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, two idealistic Communists, one an innocent woman librarian from London, the other a member of East German Intelligence, are callously sacrificed for the greater good of the Western (capitalist) cause. Both are Jews (although in the film, for reasons I never understood, the innocent librarian, played by Claire Bloom, was not allowed to be Jewish).”