As our month of celebration winds down, I wanted to reflect on how some of us first discovered this little corner of the internet, and some of the many, many wonderful memories made here.
Wow. Has it been that long already? The Library could be my younger sibling. 😀
I once was a kid years old, in possession of an internet connection, and drive to be right. The Elderscrolls had a community that indulged me. I wielded the books in Library like a hammer of truth. Imagine people getting literally gobsmacked by citations and excerpts. And in doing so I met new people, learned new things, made friends and in general had a thing that carried me through highschool and a good part of univeristy. I eventually got into Software Engineering thanks to Ghan Buri Ghan and his Morrowind Scripting for Dummies, and that was a good thing.
Thanks for being there folks!
PS: The Dragon Break is totally like Git!
– Proweler
I first discovered TIL back when it was Xanathar’s Library. I started reading everything I could on the site and fell in love.
– B
Honestly, I don’t remember how I first discovered TIL. When I got into Morrowind back in 2003 or so, it just felt like it had always been there.
As to TIL-related memories: well, apart from meeting my SO, obviously, there’s just too much to mention. In no particular order:
– The very first Storyboard. I’m not sure where that somewhat bizarre name comes from, but it lives on to this day. Nowadays it’s just a standard forum integrated into the site, but before that it was a separate forum. Even before that, however, it was one of those 90s monstrosities, complete with animated gif header, where the entire forum was just one long list of threaded links. (See for yourself)
Now you might be thinking “man, technology sure has come a long way”, but the important takeaway here is that this absolute fossil of web technology was in use on the Imperial Library well into the 2000’s. I cannot find the exact date, but I estimate we finally laid it to rest somewhere around 2006.
– I swear I am familiar with the internet post-2008, but I feel obliged to bring to mind another relic: the old #til IRC channel. Before the days of Discord and Facebook Messenger, IRC was an accessible and versatile medium for group discussions. That channel had constant activity, from actual meetings to complete nonsense.
-Adanorcil, librarian 2006 – 2017
I can’t remember exactly, but when I was first getting into the lore (while playing Oblivion+Skyrim) I found myself searching the web for the many questions I had about Ayleids, Dwemer, Dragons, Falmer, etc. and I would usually be shown links to TES Wiki, UESP, and TIL. Out of those three I found the formatting/layout of TIL to be, imo, easier to navigate. It was quick to find maps for when I finally started playing Morrowind and storylines for when I would inevitably get stuck in Daggerfall. Plus, no ads. 🙂 Eventually, I joined and soon after became an Assistant Librarian. TIL and the lore community by extension has helped me out in more than just TES related stuff. It feels good knowing that now I am able to help it in return.
-Tailin Sero, Assistant Librarian
I discovered TIL probably when I googled something on the lore, knew about it for years. August 2018 marks a 3-year anniversary of me being a member; I made an account when I became more active in the community. Back then, when I started, I was an administrator of the Polish The Elder Scrolls Wiki for eight months already and that was a time of shifting from learning a ton of lore to sharing it and discussing, getting involved in forums, wikis and themed groups on facebook. I don’t see the point of knowing things if you can’t use, share or archive them. It’s very hard to select a single TIL-related memory that is my favourite, or even a couple of them. I think it might be one of the first topics I brought up here, over two years ago, when I found Dwemer plans in The Elder Scrolls Online and posted them on forums to discuss. There is a sense of wonder and excitement when you find something unexplored in a new game and run to the forums to show others what you have found. There is another one, though. Once, on behalf of the Polish TES Wiki, I was organizing a meeting at Pyrkon, the biggest European fantasy convention. The meeting was for TES fans, it didn’t really have a program, it was just drinking beer, eating sweetrolls and S’jirra’s famous potato bread (Nerds’ Kitchen made those dishes for us). I even managed to get a Polish Bethesda Community Manager there and have The Imperial Library as a patron of the event on facebook. It was special to me because all of those people, those knowledgeable about lore, those less knowledgeable, the Bethesda worker, wikia editors, cosplayers and Nerds’ Kitchen food magicians (they really did some food magic, yes) sat there at the table and had fun together. Whether someone was just a gamer and fan of TES, or was someone with input into the community, they were all simply welcome. And happy to be there. I remember this event as an especially pleasant afternoon and evening. The potato bread was awesome.
-Stygies VIII, Assistant Librarian since 2017
What about you? How did you come to find us, and what memories have you made?
