As part of my current novel research I have been reading 'Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack' By Richard Ovenden, and it really highlights just how important and symbolic, Libraries, Archives, Collections, Documents and Records become during times of upheaval, of social or political unrest. When one nation dominates another, seeking to suppress, or eradicate a culture or beliefs, or wants to maintain the perception of power and control, or make certain uncomfortable truths disappear.
Most would not think of the destruction of a library, perhaps with the same horror or outrage as the mass killing of a group of people, still the preservation of knowledge is a critical facet in maintaining a culturally rich, progressive, open, fair, and equitable society.
Ovenden argues that owning one’s past, one’s knowledge, one’s culture, is essential for societal development and provides us with a means to collectively engage with the problems of our past, and by extension, our present, and so helps to facilitate healing.
We should give due consideration to the role that libraries and archives play in representing our collective Consciousness, Identity and Creativity, our Ingenuity and Diversity.
It almost seems too obvious to state, but such places literally serve to document how society thinks, feels and behaves at a given moment in history, in the present. They literally encourage the exchange of Knowledge and sharing of Culture.
Ovenden's work, champions the view that Libraries and Achieves should be held by Society in the highest regard, and that we have a duty to properly fund that necessary preservation of knowledge.
He provides us with plenty of examples throughout History where the subject of Libraries/Knowledge/Information has had a critical part to play on the political world stage, in times of War and Peace.
He highlights the endeavours of many brave and heroic individuals who risked their lives to preserve important documents.
He also draws our attention to the increasingly pressing need to preserve insight and knowledge in the current, fast-paced and ever-changing digital age, and consider the role that libraries play in helping to maintain truth and balance in a world where Truth and Fact appear to be more under threat than ever.
I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about, the Ancient Library of Alexander, the Louvain, and Ashurbanipal's Library. I also learned about the likes of John Leland and Thomas Bodley, among other courageous individuals who dedicated their lives to the preservation of knowledge at great personal cost.
Initially, I intended for this blog to be a bit of a tour of the ancient manuscripts and libraries I would love to see in person - at least theoretically! -I didn't even intend for my response to this book to be a review of the work itself as such, though I thoroughly recommend it.
However, the topic it covers just seems so important to my mind that I felt I had to draw further attention to the book in support of its message. It is a book that should not just be of special interest to book-lovers, its significance has a far broader reach into historical, sociological and political spheres.