Profile of a Potter-Phile and Rowling Reader: Brian Basore of Oklahoma City

In 2016 I received an email from Brian Basore in which he shared his thoughts about Lewis Carroll, a remarkably complex man with an outsized set of contradictions in his life even for the Victorian era. Brian subsequently became a regular correspondent and a valued part of the HogwartsProfessor online community. I don’t know how many years it was before I learned that he lived in my adopted hometown, Oklahoma City, and before we met at a Christmas party in my home.

He recently retired from his job at the Oklahoma Historical Society, a job which he largely invented day to day along with what ‘Oklahoma History’ is (his 45 years there represent just under 40% of the state’s existence and close to 100% I think of what could be called its adulthood). Brian’s co-workers, his friends and admirers, had a small going away party in his honor on his last day.

It had a Harry Potter theme.

When he wrote to me about it, I thought this was an opportunity to challenge one of the persistent myths about Rowling Readers, namely, that they are all younger people, predominantly women, politically progressive, read mostly on their smart phones or iPads, and live on the American coasts. Kat Miller of MuggleNet recently opined to Variety that Harry Potter fandom was mostly women and “very, very queer.” That may seem to be more evidence of the bubble world in which she lives than reality, but my experience of fandom gatherings from 2003 to 2020 is that this is a fair description of that demographic.

But does that part of fandom which lives on Twixter and social media and which plans its vacations around Fan Con meet-ups in Orlando reflect the international diversity of Rowling’s audience? Or is it really just a reflection of the reality that readers of fiction are overwelmingly women?

Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male and female brains, to the way that boys and girls are introduced to reading at a young age.

One thing is certain: Americans—of either gender—are reading fewer books today than in the past. A poll released last month by The Associated Press and Ipsos, a market-research firm, found that the typical American read only four books last year, and one in four adults read no books at all. This ‘Why Women Read More than Men‘ NPR story is from the year Deathly Hallows was published, but its assertions seem current:

A National Endowment for the Arts report found that only 57 percent of Americans had read a book in 2002 a four percentage-point drop in a decade. Book sales have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography.

When it comes to fiction, the gender gap is at its widest. Men account for only 20 percent of the fiction market, according to surveys conducted in the U.S., Canada and Britain.

By this measure, “chick-lit” would have to include Hemingway and nearly every other novel, observes Lakshmi Chaudhry in the magazine In These Times. “Unlike the gods of the literary establishment who remain predominately male—both as writers and critics—their humble readers are overwhelmingly female.”

Book groups consist almost entirely of women, and the spate of new literary blogs are also populated mainly by women. The Associated Press study stirred a small buzz among some of those bloggers.

“I’ve read at least 100 books in the past year. Seriously. Probably more like 150 to 200,” a user named Phyllis wrote on the literary blog Trashionista. “My husband? I’m guessing zero, unless you count picture books and comic books he has read to the kids.”

“We see it every time in our store,” says Carla Cohen, owner of the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. “Women head straight for the fiction section and men head for nonfiction.”

“I know that we certainly have more women than men customers,” concurs Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books, an independent bookstore in the Miami area. “But I don’t have any wisdom about why that is.”

Kaplan speculates that women may be buying books for men, but he concedes that could be simply wishful thinking.

The assertion that “the gods of the literary establishment,” to include critics, are “predominantly male” is laughable with respect to Rowling Studies, if men may represent more than 20% of that field as the article claims is the percentage of male fiction readers.

I was struck when thinking about Brian’s retirement party about how thoughtful men who are fiction readers but not professional critics are largely invisible in Potter fandom, though they may make up as much as a quarter of Rowling’s audience.

So I asked him if he would answer seven questions about himself as an introduction to his interest in the Wizarding World and the post Potter work of Rowling-Galbraith. He very generously complied and I reprint his answers below without comment or highlighting.

I think you will find it, as I did, a wonderful snap-shot of one man’s professional life as an historian-archivist, his personal life as a reader, and where those quite separate worlds intersected briefly at a turning point in his life.

Congratulations, Brian, on your retirement — and thank you for sharing your history with me and your fellow serious readers at Hogwarts Professor!

(1) Who is Brian Basore and how did he wind up at the Oklahoma Historical Society?

I was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 1951, moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1961, and moved to The Village, in Oklahoma City, in 1967. Except for time in the US Army and in college, I have lived in Oklahoma City. When  I was in High School I was given a copy of The Annotated Alice (1960), by Martin Gardner. I’m  married.  My two sons, born in the 1980s, are single and employed.

How I wound up at the Oklahoma Historical Society was that my Dad wrote down a phone number  he got from a Public Service Announcement ad late one night on television, and I followed up on the phone number.

As it happened, the librarian at the Oklahoma Historical Society library had a standing arrangement with CETA for finding prospective employees; it was a federal training program, which meant the library got an employee for free. I was paid by CETA. This job lasted a year, until my CETA supervisor called to say they needed the position for somebody else.  I told the librarian about the call, and the librarian told me to go across the street to the Merit System Commission to take the Library Assistant test, which I did, then returned to the library, and was put fulltime on the State payroll, effectively immediately, no time lost. It was that simple.

The library was grossly understaffed (total of 5) at the time, the jobs were on-the-job training, no job descriptions, no supervisors, just scrambling every day to do what needed to be done. The library was open from 9:00 AM till 9:00 PM Monday through Friday, and 9-to-5 on Saturdays, by law, back then. I became a Merit System employee with benefits after a six month probationary period.

(I know; that’s only 44 years with the State, not 45. My military service time was added at retirement.)

(2)  What is the OHS? Does it have a public museum or library? What was your role (were your roles) there?

Every state in the US handle its history differently. In Oklahoma, state agency records are at the State Archives in the Oklahoma Department of Libraries. Otherwise the historical agency is the Oklahoma Historical Society, a semiprivate organization. It was started in 1893 in Kingfisher by the Oklahoma Press Association, and a territorial [State] organization by the same name founded by a history class at the University of Oklahoma in Norman in 1895. The Kingfisher society was private; the State society was a State agency. The private organization subsumed the State agency, creating a privately run hybrid organization that has had State-paid employees since 1895.

The 25-member Board of Directors was elected from members of the OHS until 1981, when that was changed to  13 members elected from membership, and 12 members appointed by the Governor. (The OHS serves at the pleasure of the Board of Directors. This has made for some interesting history.) The semiprivate status allows the OHS to  raise money from (and make deals with) private and corporate sources, where a purely State agency cannot; the status also has allowed the OHS library and archives to be used by the general public since 1930.

The OHS is an umbrella organization that includes a museum and a separate library. The library (the Research Division) is in the Oklahoma History Center building with the State Museum. Admission to the library is free; admission to the museum is not. The Museum gift store sells tourist things but it won’t sell the things the library sells.

The library has kept newspapers (on microfilm), telephone books, some city directories, some yearbooks (college and high school), and a lot of family histories in the main reading room, besides having public computers. The library is not advertised as a public library but it is open to the public. It’s like an older public library.

Most of the people who come in to use the library are there to do their family genealogy, which in Oklahoma often includes tracing their Indian connection. Most often family stories say they’re Cherokee. The library staff help patrons with that kind of research. Another popular search is to try to find out more about skeletons in the family closet that have been mentioned but family members won’t talk about. Also, as children people tend to not pay attention to what grown-ups have said, and then later wish they’d paid more attention. That’s part of genealogy too.

The OHS has a booth at the Oklahoma State Fair in Oklahoma City every year to try to raise  public awareness in Oklahoma that the OHS exists. The OHS has a low public profile, a problem you’d think an 131-year-old state agency with public museums and historic sites scattered all across Oklahoma wouldn’t have. The  diverse nature of Oklahoma and its history, which makes the state interesting also works against it, and that of course affects the OHS. In the past two years the OHS library has made a concerted effort to combat that by having a booth at many local events all year long.

My role on the OHS library staff was to help the patrons use the library (and to learn what the library had, so I could help the patrons). In more recent years the library has made money filling mail and online requests for paper copies of obituaries and Dawes (Five Civilized Tribes Commission) enrollment packets. Searching old newspapers on microfilm (the OHS is the state newspaper repository for Oklahoma newspapers) for obituaries has incidentally allowed me to learn Oklahoma history from those newspapers, over the years. Oklahoma’s history is recorded in its newspapers, which is why the OHS was started by the Oklahoma Press Association.

When the library was open till 9:00 PM on weekdays I was the evening employee. I’d come in at noon and lock the library front door at night. It was good to be a library working adults could use in the evenings. I had a few volunteers in the evenings that I supervised though I was never formally appointed as a supervisor. (There were supposed to be two library staff on duty in the evenings, but that didn’t happen.)

I worked with the book binding volunteers on Wednesdays, and worked sometimes  in Technical Services, doing inventory lists of collections of county records or newspapers on microfilm, or making acid-free book boxes for damaged books. Once I worked for six months as the assistant to  the Photographic Archivist, in the Archives and Manuscripts Division, on assignment from the library, before the Archives and Library merged. I helped with the Historic Ranch and Farm program in the State Historical Preservation Office, the Oklahoma branch of the National Register. I repaired things because “‘he’s  the one who knows where the screwdriver is.” I glued labels back on microfilm boxes in the Newspaper Room when the labels came off the boxes. I recently typed a new label for a microfilm box that had lost its label.

In short, my job description was ‘duties as assigned,’ so to speak, to the very end, as when I began.

1889-1890 Oklahoma Territory history was my specialty. I was regarded by the library staff to be the Land Expert, a Map expert, and the person to find books they couldn’t find. I was occasionally described as the library’s “corporate memory.” My supervisor of 33 years said in public that I was her work husband.

Learning something new every day in a research library is a good way to learn history. (And I got paid to learn history and share it with people!  Most historical societies are volunteer.)

More recent employees have defined titles and job descriptions.

(3) What was the effort or accomplishment that you look back on with the most pleasure, even pride?

The one I can openly speak about is the Smith’s project, Basore’s Name Finding List for Smith’s First Directory of Oklahoma Territory, August 1,1890-1891.It ran from 1993 to 2024, spanning six PCs, starting with DOS 4.1 and 5 1/4″ single sided floppies. It is online with other indices at the OHS website, under “Research”.

Smith’s, my quick name for it here, began in the mistaken assumption that a simple alphabetized surname and page index for the 1890 directory wouldn’t take more than two or three weeks to compile. The library needed names for quick reference for answering research requests from patrons, and the 1890 directory was 331 pages of names, already in alphabetical order, sort of. (The library had the indexed edition of the 1890 directory, by Larry S. Watson, but it wasn’t at all the research tool the OHS library needed.) We at the OHS library almost always had to make our own in-house research tools, so I thought, ‘How hard can that be?’.

Long story short, Smith’s had to meet the standards of the genealogists who were going to use the index as a quick reference tool. It had to be accurate as possible, and a name listing that consisted of two initials and a surname was barely acceptable. The 1890 directory was 51% two initials and a surname, for one thing. For another, the finished 1890 directory fell short of its stated intent.( I will say they likely did the best they could from their handwritten field notes under difficult circumstances.)

Smith’s could not be the usual index in the back of a book, that is, that notes something in the book as it appears in the book and on what page it appears in the book. I filled in initials where I could, and made corrections, based on contemporary historical sources. Some of those sources were more scattered than others, so I couldn’t make changes all at once, which is why the project took so long. (Also, I asked the family members of those 1890 people, while I was helping them in the library, ‘Do you know what that initial stood for?’ )

It was a treasure hunt to me, one gem at a time, and it helped to keep my job more interesting until I retired. (In the Smith’s list I reduced the number of names that were two initials and a surname from 51% to 7%, and that’s pretty good.)

(4) You’re a serious reader; who are your favorite authors and what are the books you re-visit most often? Are you active in any literary societies or fandoms?

I cut down on reading in the last year or so. At present my favorite writers are James Robertson, Anne Donovan, George MacDonald, Robert Louis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll and Enid Blyton. The two books I re-visit at present are Abel’s Island (1976) by William Steig, and The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, second edition (2010), by Jonathan Rose.

The Hogwarts Professor is the only society or fandom I belong to. I was a member of the two Lewis Carroll societies years ago.

(5) How did you first encounter Harry Potter? What sparked your interest and how did you pursue learning more about the author and the books?

From a coworker; I borrowed her Harry Potter books up through Goblet of Fire, I think. That was after I found a note I’d written quite some time before that which clearly indicated I’d read Harry Potter books earlier than I recalled; I was startled, upon reading that note, that I had no memory of reading them. (This fits into the pattern of starting small and becoming more involved gradually.) I was interested on the side how this  current book phenomenon compared to the history of the popularity of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. [If you check back to my Question One entry, the 1960 Annotated Alice was an important event in my past.]

On May 16, 2016, I wrote a letter to John Granger, telling him it relieved my frustration with Lewis Carroll (for refusing to say what he meant) if I went into Harry Potter mode and imagined  that Lewis Carroll was a wizard writing for wizards. On May 16, 2016, ‘KyKid 942’ approved my membership in the Alohomora! forums. May 16, 2016, then, is the date that I can document of my first contacts with Harry Potter fandom.

By that time, like a lot of fans, I wanted more Harry, Ron and Hermione adventures and had investigated the Japanese manga Harry Potter alternative published by Clamp. One way to learn more about JKR and her Harry Potter was to compare and contrast them with clear examples of what JKR and Harry Potter were not.

Between Clamp’s Harry-look-alike and having earlier gone into Carrollian Studies, the next way I learned was by going to Pottermore.

JKR doesn’t explain to her American fans that she and her books are British. Fortunately, Lewis Carroll had already sparked my reading to learn what being British means. It also helped that I, like a lot of Americans, had earlier absorbed Monty Python’s Flying Circus after seeing  them on PBS television.

(6) Has your interest in the Wizarding World become part of your working life with ‘Generation Hex’ employees at OHS?

In a couple of cases. In 2018 I helped one coworker with the book she was putting together about Oklahoma Land records, and the Wizarding connection gave the two of us more in common than knowing something about Oklahoma land history. More recently and more importantly, the manuscripts Archivist  and I often talked about Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, and her Wizarding World, to have something other than work to talk about.

(Which leads to:)

(7) Tell us about the Retirement party and its Harry Potter elements!

I should have known it wasn’t going to be just another-excuse-for-pizza party. For one thing, my supervisor started planning it October 10th, the day I put in for retirement, immediately telling me not to be around her. She eventually sent me the message when and where to show up for my Retirement Party.

As I walked into the party on December 11th, I noticed that the boxes of pizza were there. I was handed a wand. The seats at all the tables each had a sound-and-light effect magic wand, every table was sprinkled  with photo buttons of me at different ages, and the ceiling was fitted with battery-powered floating candles. I was made to sit facing the people, and I had to wear the Sorting Hat. Behind me on the wall was a large photo of me when I was about fifteen in a frame that said HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WIZARD?. On the big screens in the room, they ran some of the first Harry Potter movie, followed by the pictures that had been used on the photo pins. In the back of the room was a photo cake.

To the right of where I sat in the Sorting Hat was a pile of boxes.  Three of the boxes were gift-wrapped in newsprint (I’d been working with the newspapers on microfilm the last few years): a boxed calligraphy set and extra bottle of ink (I’d had pens and ink from the old Newspaper Department), a rough-looking blank book that looked like it was from the Wizarding World, and a toy Golden Snitch in a cloth bag and zippered case. The biggest box was of groceries to go with the punny speech of farewell. The printout of that goodbye piece is my favorite keepsake from the Retirement Party. At the end, after the speeches and testimonies, everyone in the room, on cue, gave me a “Wands Up!” salute, wands lit.

Remember my friend the Archivist in (6)? She’s the “Generation Hex” fan who worked with my supervisor during those two months of planning my Retirement Party! (The pictures of me? My office neighbor for sixteen years married my brother. I think she supplied the family pictures.) I felt loved and appreciated at that party, which was the last time for us to be together.