Saying that local librarian Lisa Waite Bunker is an average "Harry Potter" fan is like saying Tucson is sort of hot in the summer.
Bunker, 49, used her skills as a librarian and former art history student to co-write "The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Material" with the book's main author, Steve Vander Ark. Vander Ark, 51, is from Grand Rapids, Mich.
"I basically dropped everything except being there for my husband and work," Bunker said. She's a librarian in the Pima County Public Library's youth services department.
"The Lexicon," which Michigan-based RDR Books published in January, is an alphabetical guide to characters, places, spells and other things in British author JK Rowling's seven-book "Harry Potter" series about a young wizard.
Vander Ark, Bunker and two other Potter fans, John Kearns and Belinda Hobbs, co-authored the guide, all contributing in their own ways. Each contributor lives in a different state and met each other through Potter fan Web sites.
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Bunker, who says she relates the most to the character of Neville Longbottom, did the character profiles.
"She's very thorough for one thing. She's a very good writer, for another thing," Vander Ark said.
Bunker read the first "Harry Potter" book in October 1998, while working as a library assistant at Sunrise Drive Elementary School in the Catalina Foothills. She saw the book's impact on children firsthand.
"I had been working in libraries and bookstores and had never seen kids react to a book like that," she recalls.
She describes herself as a "casual fan" until the third movie, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," was released in 2004. That's when she became a part of the vast online community of Potter fans.
She edits the Web site "Accio Quote," an archive of Rowling quotes at www.accio-quote.org, and is a senior writer for www.hp-lexicon.org, the online Harry Potter Lexicon.
That site went online in 2000, about seven years before work on the book version of "The Lexicon" began in August 2007.
The road leading to the book's publication was difficult. The manuscript was the subject of a copyright infringement case that Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. brought against RDR Books.
Vander Ark revised the manuscript twice in light of what he learned during the subsequent trial and from the judge's decision.
He had a "better idea where the line fell with fair use" and where Rowling stood, coming out of the trial, he said.
The U.K.-based Christopher Little Literary Agency, of which Rowling is a client, has a statement about the lawsuit's outcome on its Web site. In it, attorney Neil Blair says they were pleased that RDR decided to publish a different book with reference to the judge's decision, rather than continuing its appeal.
Now the entries in "The Lexicon" are more like thumbnail sketches than the exhaustive online lexicon. For example, the entry on the character of Severus Snape is now around 200 words versus its former seven pages in the old manuscript, Vander Ark said.
Bunker is now co-writing an annotated publication of her great-grandfather's book "Log of an Arizona Trail Blazer."
She said she definitely thinks being a librarian helped her in her research process for the Potter guide.
"I think what it did was give me a knowledge of how reference resources function when people are discussing things and the importance of conveying information that isn't colored by your point of view."
To learn more
Coming up in Tucson, Steve Vander Ark, the main author of "The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Material," will talk about the book and Harry Potter. Here's where to find him.
Tucson Festival of Books
• What: "World of Harry Potter: From Fan to Author of the Harry Potter Lexicon."
• When: 2:30 p.m. March 15.
• Where: University of Arizona Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd., in the Catalina Room.
• Plus: Lisa Waite Bunker, the guide's Tucsonan co-author, will be on hand to sign copies.
• More information: Go online to tucsonfestivalofbooks.org for more information on the festival, which runs Saturday and March 15 on the UA campus.
Bookmans Entertainment Exchange
• What: Talk and book signing with Vander Ark.
• When: 4 to 6 p.m. March 17.
• Where: 6230 E. Speedway
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