Incoherent Scribblings

Da Vinci and Databases

On Friday I finished The Da Vinci Code and about a month or so ago, I finished Dan Brown’s other Robert Langdon book Angels and Demons.

Some time before I read The Da Vinci Code and shortly after I read Angels and Demons, I read a comment from Petite Anglaise where she compared Brown’s writing style to that of a “seven year old who has swallowed a few reference books.” I got a good chuckle out of that comparison and personally, I think she might have something there!

Even so, I have to say I kind of liked these books. Normally, when I read a “who-done it” story I figure out who did it before I get to the third chapter. While Brown’s books don’t exactly fall into the “who-done it” category, he did keep me guessing as to who exactly the antagonist (for you non-literary types, that is the bad guy) was until almost the very end. On that alone, Brown gets a “thumbs up” from me.

That being said though, there is something in The Da Vinci Code that I must complain about; and that is the encounter that Langdon and Sophie have with the librarian in London. Brown doesn’t go into too much detail about what the librarian looks like except to mention that “[t]he horn-rimmed glasses hanging around her neck were thick.” And while I am slightly aggravated by this stereo-typical portrayal, what really bothers me is how the reference librarian at this library does (in my opinion) a substandard reference interview and subsequent low-quality database search.

I won’t talk about the reference interview here, but any fellow librarians reading this will know what I mean. The problem is that the librarian searches a specialized database like she is doing a Google search. There is nothing wrong with Google searches, but few library databases return relevant results if you attempt to search them like you do the web. One of the cornerstones of library database Boolean searches is using the words “and,” “or,” and “not” to include or exclude terms and the librarian in The Da Vinci Code blatantly does not do this! Luckily, Langdon and Sophie’s meeting ends with them finding what they need, but as a librarian I was very perturbed by the whole scene.

So, not only does Mr. Brown write like a seven year old who has swallowed a few reference books, in my opinion he could also really use a lesson from a reference librarian on how to conduct a proper database search!