Everyone on these forums seems to trust what the Imperial Library writers, such as "The Librarian," say as far as their knowledge of lore goes. However, I notice that a lot of the articles written are not from in-game texts. Many are just written by these TIL writers. Anyway, my question is, who are they and how come everyone trusts what they write (that is not given in-game or by Beth) as canon? Do they work for/with Bethesda?

It is ran by (mostly?) the lore forum community, IIRC. Lady Nerevar is the librarian, I think.

But ya, it has a lot of stuff (canon, half canon, fanon) but it does have stuff not seen in game but are by past devs.

The Imperial Libraries main function is cataloging all in game books (including the novels and Pocket Guides) and relevant quotes from any of the developers that may pertain to the lore. There are some articles there written by forum members on their...well, forum. Granted, most of them actually have a lot of effort/thought put into them using the same exact materials we have available to use, but that is not considered material used by Beth. They're using the same exact information that is available to everyone else.

As said above, the Imperial Library is a catalogue of everything the devs said about TES for over a decade now. These people have been following Bethesda on everything TES for a long time. Some are still the same people I remember from 10 years ago when I used to be around here actively and as far as I'm concerned, the most trustworthy and knowledgeable when it comes to elder scrolls lore, next to the actual devs themselves.

I would say that 99% of the content on there is trustworthy as Lore.

This.


That said.... even Bethesda changes Lore all the time. Which doesn't imply that they don't know what they are doing, but that the Lore should be allowed some flexibility and poetic license as different Devs come and go, and as the TES Lore progresses over time.

The stuff that isnt actually lore and is made up by fans is labeled as such.

The primary use of TIL is for quotes and writing that are written by developers, but arent found in-game... Its entirely up to you if you wish to consider these developer texts canon, though if you dont you'll be missing out.

The vast majority of the texts you will find on the Imperial Library come from the games. They have all of the in-game books as well as walk-throughs of some of the games. What's nice about those walk-throughs compared to UESP is that they present the story in a narrative format, rather than as quest information.

There are also fan written summary articles and interpretations of those texts, but these are clearly marked as such.

I suspect what you are referring to is the obscure texts. These are texts written by former and current developers of the Elder Scrolls series that don't appear in the game. The developers include Michael Kirkbride, Douglass Goodall, Gary Noonan, Ken Rolston, and others. The vast majority of the texts, and the ones that are most commonly talked about, are written by Michael Kirkbride. MK (as we call him for short) worked on the Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard and the Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as an offiicial developer. Many people credit him with transforming TES lore from generic fantasy into something interesting, deep, and unique. He left after his work on Morrowind but then continued to write stories for the Elder Scrolls Universe.

He was hired as a contract writer for Oblivion and wrote the majority of the Nights of the Nine expansion. He also wrote texts prior to Oblivion that seemed to predict a lot of the story points. I don't know if he knew what was going to happen because of his work with Bethesda or if Bethesda decided to acknowledge him after the fact. While he didn't write anything for Skyrim in an official capacity, many of his ideas were used for the game. He was responsible for a lot of the early lore on the Nords including the thu'um. His later, out of game, writings were also acknowledged (for example: Hiemskr's speech in White Run comes directly from the out of game text Many Headed Talos.)

Whether or not his texts count as "canon" is an often debated issue. Some would say they all do while others would say only those acknowledged by the developers are official. More commonly though people like to challenge the traditional notion of "canon." Obviously Bethesda will ultimately decide what ends up in the games since they own the IP. Those decisions though won't always be for the good of the story. Sometimes they might be censuring things for ratings, sometimes they may be limited by technology/money/time, and sometimes they might just decide to go in a direction that isn't very interesting.

A lot of us operate on something of a "group head canon." That which is interesting and contributes to the uniqueness of the world is accepted, that which is boring is discarded. As the fans and the people that are consuming the art/story, shouldn't we get some say in what counts?

I know its hard to think of things in this way. Most series have a very strict definition of canon. I myself once argued for "levels of canon" in TES (with official texts first, followed by out of game dev texts, followed by fan-fic) but now I don't really see the need. I'll accept what I want to accept and as a community we usually come to some kind of consensus.

There is also a different kind of text on TIL that is easier to call canon. Many times we reference developer forum posts or interviews that don't so much add new lore as they do explain old lore. If a book is in the game, shouldn't the author's explanation of that book be considered just as official? Interestingly, many of the "Obscure Texts" do just that. The "Loveletter From the Fifth Era", "Cosmology", and "Vehk's Teachings", are essentially just explanations of the in-game text "The 36 Lessons of Vivec."

PS.

"The Librarian" is MK's girlfriend LadyNerevar and she knows what she's talking about.

Ha!

Wow. All my time spent here, plus all the extra time lurking, and I never knew that those two were dating.

Wow.