It’s May 4—a day when the world turns its gaze to a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away and celebrates Star Wars. When Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was released in 1977, director George Lucas couldn’t have conceived that his film would become a cultural and economic behemoth, spawning a multitude of sequels and spinoff films, TV shows, books, and toys, and influencing generations of movie fans, science lovers, and learners.
One of I Love Libraries favorite Star Wars-related places is Rancho Obi-Wan, a nonprofit museum in Petaluma, California that houses the world’s largest Star Wars memorabilia collection, as certified by Guinness World Records in 2014. Museum founder Steve Sansweet has amassed more than 500,000 Star Wars items since the museum’s founding in 1998, everything from rare toys to life-size replicas of Star Wars characters. The collection is outstanding. Listen to I Love Libraries editor Phil Morehart discuss the collection with Sansweet here.
For more Star Wars audio delights, we recommend this fascinating look at the sound artists at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California, who use Soundminer to access and build an ever-expanding library of nearly a million sounds from the Star Wars universe.
Not surprisingly, libraries and librarians across the US have become enthusiastic supporters of Star Wars Day. Celebrations are being held in person and virtually, everywhere from California to Florida. We’re particularly impressed with the efforts of St. Tammany Parish Library in Covington, Louisiana. For readers looking to dive into the world of Star Wars novelizations and serials and how they fit into the series’ canon, the library has created an webpage outlining the works and lineage. We’ve been engrossed all day.
And, of course, there’s the American Library Association’s famous READ posters and T-shirts featuring The Child aka Grogu from Star Wars: The Mandalorian. We can’t think of a better way to show your love for both Star Wars and libraries.
May the Fourth be with you!
