Heroes boost & disparage libraries

Ya gotta love irony. I'm rather fond of the show Heroes, but they are quick to reflect common library prejudice.

Two things in the same week:

1. a new ALA graphics catalog shows up with a cover photo of a "Read" poster featuring Sendhil Ramamurthy of the NBC series Heroes.
2. in the latest episode of "Heroes" (10/15/07), as reported on the Library Geek Woes blog

   Teenage Claire wanted to sneak out of the house to meet her boyfriend, so at the dinner table announced that she had to go to the library that evening to work on a research project. Her brother responds, "Duh, Claire, haven't you ever heard of the Internet?" To which she replies, "Well, duh, that's why I'm going to the library. My paper is on how the library is obsolete!"

The depressing thing, of course, is that her family buys this as reasonable and sensible. Presumably viewers are meant to see it that way as well. Perhaps Professor Mohinder Suresh should have a little chat with Cheerleader Claire on the value of libraries! That's more likely to happen than the mainstrema media buying a clue about what we do.