Great Jedi Library

"Can you smell the history, the power here?"

- Exar Kun

The Great Jedi Library, also known as the Library of Ossus or as the Great Library of the Jedi, was a library on Ossus for anyone seeking knowledge, but used in majority by Jedi students.

Characteristics
Its purpose was simply to serve as the largest collection of known information in the galaxy. Its founder, Odan-Urr, believed that any and all forms of knowledge would be used as a potential benefit for the Jedi Order. Information was stored on thousands upon thousands of datacards, some of which were stored in the Hall of Knowledge.

Its design mirrored the architecture of the great library of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. As such, it consisted of four towers each holding information from a different era namely; Pre-Hyperdrive, Pre-Republic, Early-Republic and Modern-Republic. Protected archives in the Hall of Knowledge were maintained by anointed Jedi called the Keepers, to whom one would refer for a more interactive solution to their problems.

Formation
"I remember the last words of my master Ooroo. Perhaps I can build a great learning center. A giant library of Jedi knowledge and books on the quiet world where master Ooroo trained me. On Ossus!"

- Odan-Urr after recovering a Sith Holocron at the end of the Great Hyperspace War.

Approximately 5,000 BBY, the scholarly Jedi Knight Odan-Urr founded a center of Jedi learning on the planet Ossus, where he was trained by Ooroo.

From the days of its foundation, the Library of Ossus contained the culmination of hundreds of generations of knowledge and wisdom. Scrolls and books filled shelves, and many Jedi holocrons were stored there. Among the artifacts was a Sith holocron that Odan-Urr himself had recovered from a Sith warship in the aftermath of the Great Hyperspace War.

For over a millennium the Library of Ossus continued to grow, and soon many great Masters worked there, tending the shelves and teaching Jedi who wished to learn. One of these was the Neti Jedi Master Ood Bnar.

Destruction in the Great Sith War
Approximately 4,000 BBY, during the Great Sith War, the Library was visited by the Sith Lord Exar Kun, who seduced many young Jedi to the dark side. When he had gathered enough followers, he went to Master Odan-Urr and demanded that he turn over the Sith holocron. When the ancient Jedi refused, Kun brutally slew him and took the artifact. Thus Odan-Urr died surrounded by the books he loved so much just as his own teacher, Master Ooroo, had predicted.



Soon after, Kun's forces used an ancient Sith weapon to unleash a cataclysm that would wreck the surface of Ossus. A faction of ancient materials were transferred to Exis Station and eventually to Coruscant. As the Jedi scrambled to evacuate the scrolls and artifacts, the Sith came one last time. Ood Bnar, utilizing an ability unique to his species, buried a collection of ancient lightsabers and literally "planted" himself over them, becoming a tree-like being and binding his life force to the planet's.

This insured that the Sith would not desecrate the ancient Jedi weapons. Soon, all the Jedi had evacuated as the shock wave hit Ossus, and Master Bnar weathered the storm alone. It was thought by many that the planet had been destroyed completely but this was not the case.

Rediscovery in the Galactic Civil War
Millennia later, Okko's grandfather rediscovered the library, but was careful to keep the knowledge a family secret out of fear of looters.

Roughly a decade after the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker and Kam Solusar traveled to Ossus to find the remains of the Great Library. There they discovered that the planet had become the home of a humanoid race called the Ysanna.

Soon after, Imperial Executor Sedriss QL arrived with a small force, and after a battle (in which the Jedi were aided by the Ysanna) all but Sedriss had been defeated. Luke pushed Sedriss against a tree, only to find that it wasn't a tree at all. It was Ood Bnar. Sensing the battle, the ancient Jedi intervened, grabbing Sedriss with his limbs.



As Sedriss tried to fight Bnar through the Force, Ood reached deep into the planet's life force and destroyed himself, taking Sedriss with him. Thus, Skywalker and Solusar were free to recover the lightsabers hidden under Ood, still working after all those millennia. Afterwards, Skywalker received permission from the tribal chief to take two Ysanna youths to train as Jedi. Skywalker and Solusar later found the ruins of the Great Library, and found many secrets of the ancient Jedi Order. Many of the ancient scrolls and books remained in good condition. These - along with every known Jedi-related data - were later transferred to the new Jedi Archives.

Real life parallels
The United States Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., was founded on a similar plan. Although founded in 1800 by President John Adams, President Thomas Jefferson was really the driving force behind the current form of the Library. He is quoted as saying: "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer." This was to deflect any concerns about the suitability of the collections for the U.S. Congress' use.

The Polish Star Wars Wiki is called Biblioteka Ossus which means the Ossus Library.

Appearances

 * Tales of the Jedi: The Freedon Nadd Uprising
 * Tales of the Jedi: Dark Lords of the Sith
 * Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War
 * Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
 * Timeline 10: The Exar Kun War
 * Dark Empire II
 * Empire's End

Notes and references
Große Jedi-Bibliothek Wielka Biblioteka Jedi