What happened to the Jedi Library?

[FaxModem1]

Here's a question, when Palpatine had the Order 66 and the sacking of the Jedi Temple, what happened to the library? Was it preserved and made as some sort of trophy for the Emperor, or was it like the Library of Alexandria, and so much knowledge was lost?

[Lord Revan]

According to Dark Lord (the novel that is) it did survive for a while at though it was badly battle damaged, also parts of Force Unleashed are set there but I'm not sure how canon those parts are, if they're canon did survive until early stages of the rebellion at very least and the temple itself is seen in Return of the Jedi reasonably intact.

[StarSword]

Here's a question, when Palpatine had the Order 66 and the sacking of the Jedi Temple, what happened to the library? Was it preserved and made as some sort of trophy for the Emperor, or was it like the Library of Alexandria, and so much knowledge was lost?

Partly destroyed in the fighting, partly looted and taken as trophies. When Corran Horn escapes the Lusankya in The Krytos Trap he comes out in what appears to be the Emperor's private Jedi museum.

EDIT: Also possibly retroactively connected, there's also a scene at the beginning of The Courtship of Princess Leia where Luke is led by a native guide to a cave where a Jedi hid with a crapload of data cores, possibly from the temple, that then got EMP'd by a stormtrooper platoon when Vader found him.

[Knife]

I don't remember any mention of the Jedi Library being anything special besides being 'complete'. There is no reason to believe the Jedi had super uber info in their library that isn't available from other sources, they just had a centralized location for all data. This is a galaxy spanning civilization we're talking about here. Granted, I'm sure they had a wealth of Jedi specific info that may or may not be else where but of limited use to a non-Jedi civilization. They didn't have special technology the galaxy at large couldn't have. Heck, even the Sith holocron they held wasn't really a Sith holocron. I do believe the ROTS novel has Palpatine musing on that little fact. On top of that, it was data, not paper. No reason to not believe that data wasn't sent or accessible from other spots.

TLDR: even if the building was torn down, which I don't think it was, what makes you think the actual information within was destroyed?

[Eternal_Freedom]

In Battlefront II, when you're assaulting the Jedi Temple, one of the mission stages involves protecting some fo the archive shelf/stack things to stop the Jedi destroying them. You then have to find and kill two Masters with Holocrons that are considered very important.

As already noted, in the Dark Lord novel Vader goes to access the Archives, so I suspect they were preserved by the Emperor as a personal trophy. Given all his propaganda to make the Jedi evil the last thing he woudl want is people having access to it. As Starsword mentioned, Corran Horn finds the Jedi section of the Galactic Museum walled off and removed from the building plans so no one knew it was there.

[Simon_Jester]

The sheer fixation on having a 'complete' library, combined with the great age of the Jedi organization, might mean they do have information no one else has, because they've been actively working to preserve it where others wouldn't. However, most such information would be either very old*, or very arcane**.

It's hard to say exactly how fast information gets lost in the Republic, too. Computer technology doesn't appear to be advancing exponentially, so things like file formats may last a long time without enough change to make them unreadable... but for thousands of years? How good is the data storage format of the typical Republic computer; if they're designed for the realistically foreseeable needs of their customers, a lot of Star Wars computer files will decay toward illegibility on a timescale of decades or at most centuries. Multi-millenia deep archiving is just not a typical requirement, so a lot of information may still be accidentally lost everywhere except the ancient archives specifically designed to preserve it.
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*Say, 4000-year-old files on Republic generals, which the Republic's own archives might have purged as being of no practical interest, or failed to update to a modern readable format.
**Say, the equivalent of fifty year old newspaper clippings from a local area newsletter, kept because some Jedi thought they were of interest to some obscure peacekeeping mission he served on at that time.

[RogueIce]

Well there is this promotional art which has Vader in what appears to be a fairly intact Jedi Archives.

Granted it's just promotional art and probably doesn't mean anything in terms of actual canon, but it could be at least an indication of what they're thinking about? If Rebels does go on long enough we may even get to see Coruscant, so who knows.

IOW I think the jury is still out on this one, especially with the current state of the unknown existing 'canon' currently lurks with all the new projects coming out. For all we know, that original post-RotJ EU thing about Luke having to "find" information about the Jedi Order will get overturned in Episode VII when we discover the Archives were intact, just inaccessible to the public until the Empire fell. We did see an intact Temple, after all.

[Borgholio]

so things like file formats may last a long time without enough change to make them unreadable... but for thousands of years?

Well a holocron is basically a personal data storage device, albeit one that requires the Force to activate. Holocrons have been found that contain data thousands of years old...so it's certainly possible. The only question remaining is whether the technology used in creating the holocrons is off the shelf stuff or not (minus the Force enhancements, of course).

[Lord Revan]

something we shouldn't forget is that some of the important data could be encrypted, we know some holocrons were limited access, a big part of Anakin's story in ROTS is that he thought he would need high council level access to save Padmé. So it's not unreasonable to assume that data in the archives would organized something like this

1. Public Level(data that pretty much everyone can access)
2. Padawan Level (data that only members of the Jedi Order can access)
3. Knight Level (for Jedi at knight rank or higher)
4. Master Level(for Jedi at master rank or higher)
5. High council Level(for members of the High Council of the Jedi Order only)

Obviously I made this chart up, but it could explain why Luke would have hard time getting info on the Jedi even if the archives technically survived, as he would have access only to the data at "Public Level" without trying to hack the system.

[The Romulan Republic]

Since R2D2 was able to get information that was or at least should have been classified on the Death Star, he could probably hack the Jedi Temple's archives.

[Lord Revan]

Since R2D2 was able to get information that was or at least should have been classified on the Death Star, he could probably hack the Jedi Temple's archives.

It's possible, assuming there's no programming restrictions preventing that (R2 did work for the Jedi Order for most of the Clone Wars).

[Batman]

The only information we know R2 got by himself on the Death Star were the location and intended fate of one Princess Leia and the operations of their onboard garbage disposal system, both of which are highly unlikely to be heavily encrypted. The actual Death Star plans were merely dumped into his memory-we have no idea what if anything he had to do with decrypting them.

[The Romulan Republic]

Didn't he also find out where to go to sabotage the tractor beam?

[Lord Revan]

The only information we know R2 got by himself on the Death Star were the location and intended fate of one Princess Leia and the operations of their onboard garbage disposal system, both of which are highly unlikely to be heavily encrypted. The actual Death Star plans were merely dumped into his memory-we have no idea what if anything he had to do with decrypting them.

he did only show the operation of the tractor beam and show to disable it.

As for the plans themselves if the "Death Star" novel is to be believed they weren't gotten from an imperial military network but a civilian one (the chief archivist of the Death Star had copied the plans on his own personal database which the rebels hacked).

[Arawn Fenn]

Since R2D2 was able to get information that was or at least should have been classified on the Death Star, he could probably hack the Jedi Temple's archives.

In some of the books ( Dark Nest ) it was revealed that Artoo had downloaded the security holorecordings as seen in ROTS.

[Havok]

Didn't he also find out where to go to sabotage the tractor beam?

And by sabotage, you mean "turn off"?

Anyway, I think Knife has it right. It's just a library that has been well maintained for thousands of years. Given Palpatine's penchant for history and knowledge, I doubt he would have it destroyed. There isn't anything Sith that is there that he doesn't already have or know, and Jedi knowledge is basically the same thing.

Honestly, turning it into the Imperial library would probably give him more pleasure than destroying it.

[FaxModem1]

Consider that in The Jedi Path, Palpatine actually ripped the Chosen One chapter out of the Jedi book, that Palatine isn't as dedicated to preserving history as you think.

[Batman]

Consider that in The Jedi Path, Palpatine actually ripped the Chosen One chapter out of the Jedi book, that Palatine isn't as dedicated to preserving history as you think.

Depends on why he did it and what he did with the torn parts afterwards. Was he trying to get rid of the part period or was he just trying to prevent the Jedi from finding it? And did he actually destroy it or just store it somewhere he deemed secure?

[StarSword]

Consider that in The Jedi Path, Palpatine actually ripped the Chosen One chapter out of the Jedi book, that Palatine isn't as dedicated to preserving history as you think.

There was also a mention in one of the early NJO books (James Luceno's Hero's Trial, I believe) when the Vong took Obroa-skai, that the Vong were hoping to gain intelligence by taking the library planet but that information on the Jedi was conspicuously thin, as if somebody had systematically deleted a lot of it.

[Arawn Fenn]

Depends on why he did it and what he did with the torn parts afterwards.

He probably ate them.

[Havok]

Consider that in The Jedi Path, Palpatine actually ripped the Chosen One chapter out of the Jedi book, that Palatine isn't as dedicated to preserving history as you think.

There was also a mention in one of the early NJO books (James Luceno's Hero's Trial, I believe) when the Vong took Obroa-skai, that the Vong were hoping to gain intelligence by taking the library planet but that information on the Jedi was conspicuously thin, as if somebody had systematically deleted a lot of it.

There is every reason to think that surviving Jedi did that as much as Palpatine.

[Havok]

Consider that in The Jedi Path, Palpatine actually ripped the Chosen One chapter out of the Jedi book, that Palatine isn't as dedicated to preserving history as you think.

I think the Chosen One represents a unique subject to Palpatine don't you? I mean the fact that he ONLY ripped out that section when he could have just torched the book or the whole library says to me he is very much interested in preserving history.

[FaxModem1]

Actually, there are annotations in the book from Luke Skywalker saying that Palpatine ripped out this section, after Anakin Skywalker gave it to him.

[Elheru Aran]

As far as that specific action goes-- Palpatine probably didn't want anybody reading it and figuring out who was actually the Chosen One (namely, that guy in all the black with the heavy breathing...). If anybody was going to identify a Chosen One, he probably wanted them to think it was himself, or just have nothing to go on.

[Havok]

Either way, if you don't give a fuck, there is no need to be specific. He obviously gave a fuck.