The Problem of the Unchanging Librarian, Space Moves but She Does Not: An Analysis in R of the Novels and Novellas of Hugo Nominees and Winners from 1939–2025

In an infinite number of planets, and in a world where you could wear anything, why do all the librarians look alike? Why do they still wear their hair in a bun? Why are they all cranky and wear space tweed with their glasses on a chain? We analyzed the text of all novels and novellas of the Hugo nominees and winners from 1939 - 2025. Using a textual analysis using R to find reference(s) to librarians, libraries and other mentions of research to see how depictions of this important category change (or not) over time, and how our imaginings of this also evolve. Using text mining we analyzed the novels and novellas using sentiment analysis, word analysis, relationships between words, and topic modeling, etc. After our initial analysis of the AI summaries, we discovered that a mixed-methods approach of large dataset analysis and close reading provided the most accurate summary of what we wanted to find. This project builds on previous research where we’ve seen that librarians and libraries are mentioned or are an important part of the books chosen for Hugo nominations in the last two decades. We are eager to delve deeper into a longer arc of the awards to see if this is a trend of all Hugo readers or if it is a recent development. Our future plans with this dataset are to find patterns, related trends in publishing, current affairs or other combinations of questions in science fiction and fantasy research.