Steve chats with Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon, authors of The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, about how they each got into the profession, why archives can never truly be neutral and objective, how archives and special collections are portrayed within time travel narratives in pop culture, and what we can learn from those narratives to correct misconceptions and misinformation.

Read the transcript!

Spanning H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine to Marvel’s Loki, this delightful book considers how science fiction stories portray archives and archivists, analyzes the ways in which these portrayals affect readers’ views, and shows how archivists can leverage these insights to improve the public’s understanding of the discipline.

The fascination with time travel and its consistent popularity within the science fiction genre is deeply rooted in science fiction writers’ and readers’ passion for history and, by extension, for libraries and other kinds of archives. However, time travel, archives, and history intersect in the public imagination in ways that don’t always match up with the reality of archival work. This book engages archivists and devotees of science fiction alike by exploring common tropes within the genre—and common assumptions in the archival profession—and providing context. Presenting a book that can serve as a teaching text, readers’ advisory guide, and thought-provoking page turner, the authors

• explore dozens of novels, short stories, movies, and TV series (particularly Doctor Who), spotlighting different science fictional approaches to writing about time travel while pointing out how archives and archivists are represented in different time travel stories;
• examine how various cultures and societies view and understand time differently, using works such as Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Toshikazo Kawaguchi’s Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and Rivers Solomon’s An Unkindness of Ghosts to show how differences in temporal perception affect the presentation of time travel in their works;
• look at stereotypes, outdated views, and biases depicted within time travel depictions of archives, comparing these portrayals with real-world archives and historical records;
• discuss ways in which understanding time travel fiction can help archivists improve their relationships with the public and encourage more accurate fictional depictions of their work; and
• connect the concepts in their book to cultural heritage practices that encourage critical thinking about archivists’ roles in documenting our times.

Twelve-time Hugo Award winner Lynne M. Thomas is the Head of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library and Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Rare Book and Manuscript Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She previously served as the Head of Distinctive Collections and Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL (2004-2017) where she was responsible for popular culture special collections including the literary papers of over 75 SF/F authors and the official archives of SFWA. She is the co-author of Special Collections 2.0 (Libraries Unlimited, 2009) and the co-editor of New Directions for Special Collections: An Anthology of Practice, both with Beth Whittaker (ABC-CLIO, 2016). An alumna of Smith College with a degree in French and Comparative Literature, she also holds an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MA in English and American Literature from Northern Illinois University. She co-edited the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords (2010) with Tara O’Shea, and currently contributes to the Verity! Doctor Who Podcast.

Katy Rawdon is the Coordinator of Technical Services for the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University, a public research university in Philadelphia. She worked previously as the Director of Archives, Libraries, and Special Collections at the Barnes Foundation (2001-2012), an art collection and educational institution which houses one of the world’s greatest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern art. She co-authored the chapter “What’s in a Name? Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia and the Impact of Names and Name Authorities in Archival Description” in Ethical Questions in Name Authority Control, (Library Juice Press, 2019), the Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia Anti-Racist Description Resources (2019), and contributed to the Best Practices for Queer Metadata (2024) as part of the Queer Metadata Collective. A published author of romance novels (as Katy James) and poetry, and an enthusiastic fanfic writer, she has long been interested in intersections between popular culture and her work in special collections. She received her BA in Art History and Women’s Studies from Smith College and her MLS from Simmons College.

SHOW NOTES:

The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination
“The Big Idea: Lynne M. Thomas & Katy Rawdon” [Whatever, 19 March 2026]