Tim DeFoor loves the Star Wars galaxy so much that you can find him in Obi-Wan Kenobi garb, complete with lightsaber, while reading from 5-Minute Star Wars Stories as a part of The Library’s Community Story Corner video project.

“There’s one line in The Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker says, ‘I’ll try,’” says DeFoor, explaining the enduring appeal of Star Wars (aside from the fact that Darth Vader is “just cool”).

“Yoda says, ‘There is no try. Either do or not do.’ There’s the lesson that you can do something or can’t do it, and if you can’t do it, that’s okay. And there’s also the Dark Side – that fear and anger, and how that can consume you,’’ he says. “You constantly have to be at peace with yourself to make the right decisions.”

DeFoor is the Dauphin County controller who, on January 19, begins a new job as Pennsylvania’s Auditor General. He is also a lifelong fan of libraries. In college, he would save costs by borrowing required readings from the local library. While earning a master’s degree from Harrisburg University, Dauphin County Library System offered a quiet place to study and a source for books on his thesis exploring how builders used project management principles to construct the Great Pyramid of Giza.

“The Library is the main community resource,” he says. “Everything you need to learn is at the Library.”

What are you reading? I just finished reading Star Wars: Resistance Reborn. That tells the story of what happened between the last Jedi and the rise of Skywalker. The other book is First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How that Shaped Our Country, by Thomas E. Ricks

Why those books? I find myself reading history and answering some unanswered questions. What ideas did our founding fathers have to found this country, and where did they get their ideas? What were they thinking? I know what they did to build the country, but what influenced them? That’s the one question I never could answer.

Why are libraries important to the communities you serve? What would we do without them? It’s tough to find anybody whose life hasn’t been impacted by the public libraries. They always have been and continue to be important to the community because they are part of the community.