Libraries are under attack around the world. This includes libraries in the Bible Belt where evangelicals want to control what people can read according to their own agenda.

Libraries are also attacked by a thousand budget cuts, right-wing extremists who abhor the freedom to know, and in some places, like Bosnia Herzegovina  by actual bombs.

According to Richard Ovenden in his lecture at the Toronto Public Library,

“We are going through a profound shift in the way that knowledge is created, shared and stored at the moment. As a result, public knowledge is increasingly in the hands of major technologies, or what the Oxford historian, Timothy Garton Ash , has called “private super powers.”

That really is an appropriate phrase for an age in which private individuals are taking over the world of so much that used to be solely within the public domain, including space travel, policing, armed forces, universities, hospitals, and so much else. The private domain is expanding with electric speed, while the public realm, after decades of neo-liberal ideological dominance is shrinking to the size of a modest bath tub like the wealthy had hoped.  Think about it—recently a private army marched on Moscow and the leader Putin cringed and made a deal with Prigozhin. That would have been unimaginable a mere 5 years ago.  Now people shrug at the insolence. What else is new, or as Bob Dylan said, “what else can you show me?”

Ovenden also mentioned how archives have changed in the modern age of emails, Twitter (now X), Tik Tok, and other new social media.  Who ever thought presidents of the richest most powerful country in the world would communicate directly to his fevered followers on Twitter or Truth Social at 3 a.m. clearly without the benefit of any curation or communications advice? In fact, such communications are not just made without such advice, but probably against such advice!

We have also seen a former president of the US, Donald Trump, housing classified materials in the washrooms of his private club and then bragging about it to his swooning cronies. Life doesn’t get much crazier than this. Is that how Trump was creating his presidential library in the age of social media and fake news?

The examples of President Trump and President Biden and Vice-President Pence each moving state documents to their private homes highlights the problems of mixing up private and public archives so casually. How can such a society carry on? Are these each merely one more example of the decline of modern democracies?

Another example was provided by Ovenden:

“The current investigation by the British House of Commons into former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s administration during the COVID-19 crisis, focusing on messages exchanged by senior figures, highlights the critical importance of these records for the health of our democracy. They used encrypted messaging systems like WhatsApp, and Telegram to evade the normal routine of keeping records in their department, evading the Freedom of Information regimes, and long-term archiving.”

To quote Dylan again, ‘The Times they are a-changing.”  And they will never be the same again and we had better make sure we protect our freedom to read from challenges posed by a wide variety of sources. We must do this at our peril.

Libraries have a proud history of defending the freedom to read. Richard Ovenden was justifiably proud of his own library’s participation in just defence. Ovenden is the 25th Bodley’s Librarian, director of libraries at the University of Oxford. In the 1660s and 1670s it was in fact Milton’s books that were the subject of book banning.  All copies of his books were ordered to be burned. This seems remarkable today as Milton is considered one of  England’s greatest poets and one of Christendom’s strongest intellectual supporters. A predecessor Head Librarian Thomas Hyde bravely and perhaps even foolishly, refused to obey the Royal order, when he refused to surrender to the flames a special copy of Milton’s works including one that had been presented to the second Head Librarian by John Milton himself

As Ovenden said,

“libraries are proud to protect the freedom of all writers. While fighting to protect their right to write, and publish whatever they want to, they protect the freedom of readers to read them.”

The freedom to write and the freedom to read are of course opposite sides of the same coin—the coin of freedom.

In Manitoba, as far as I know libraries have all resisted misguided efforts from Christian evangelicals to ban books they disapproved of. We should be proud of them too.   And defend then when necessary.

The Holocaust that followed the book burning in 1933 was likely the greatest and most well-resourced attack on books and learning in world history. As Richard Ovenden said in his lecture at the Toronto Library:

“It was estimated that 100 million books were destroyed during the Holocaust.  These attacks on knowledge were a cultural and intellectual genocide that prefigured the human genocide that would soon follow.”

These truths must not be forgotten. We must remember them when the freedom to read is challenged as it is now in many places in North America including so far, Winkler, Winnipeg, and Brandon 1 in Manitoba. As Ovenden said,

The current wave in book banning and the broader context of censor[1]ship and constraints around freedom of expression are all stark reminders that the techniques used in Nazi Germany are once again in fashion.

Who would ever have thought that Neo-Nazism would find such a comfortable home in North America? This is an important reminder that fascism is never dead. The best we can do is tamp it down for a spell. We must never assume that it is permanently erased. It is always able to be resurrected when conditions are right.  As Ovenden added,

“Suppressing freedom to read is a core tactic used by those who seek to exercise authoritarian control over societies. Let’s be clear; it is our minds that are the true battlefield and libraries are a good proxy for those. As John Milton wrote in Areopagitica in 1644 in response to the English Parliament imposing a restrictive printing ordinance:

“For books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life within them. To be as active as that soul whose progeny they are, nay they do preserve us in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that intellect that bred them.”

If you love books you must love freedom and be ready to protect the right to read.

Banning books, so popular now, and so popular often, is really just a race to the intellectual bottom.

The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbells urged the German people to say no to “decadence and corruption” and instead follow the Nazi lead. This sounds a lot like modern American conservatives. After all who is in favor of decadence and corruption?

The Nazis were not satisfied with their achievement in creating a bonfire of books they had to convince people this was done in the name of real freedom. It is amazing how often and in how many different places around the world, freedom is attacked in the name of virtues, even in the name  of freedom.

This reminds me of the words of George Orwell in his magnificent novel 1984 where he talked about the slogans of the totalitarian Party in power:

“War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

 

There was also “the Ministry of Peace which concerned itself with War.” And of course in the novel the most frightening ministry was “The Ministry of Love.”  As Orwell wrote, the people were given a new language, called appropriately, “Newspeak” which was designed “not to expand but diminish the range of thought.”

Before the German occupation, a freedom library was opened in Paris as part of the counter revolution to the book burning in Germany. As Richard Ovenden said, “ Many people realized banning books is an act of war on truth.”

That library soon contained over 20,000 books, including not just the banned books, but even Nazi books, because the agents of freedom realized it was necessary for people to understand Nazism in order to understand what an assault on truth it constituted. The library was supported by intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell, Andre Gide and the founder the Polish intellectual Alfred Kantorowich.

The Brooklyn Jewish Center in New York also made a home for Nazi banned books for the same reason in 1934 supported by world famous intellectuals, like Albert Einstein and Upton Sinclair. These are all intellectuals who understand the importance of libraries for freedom.

Freedom to read is an essential part of freedom. No freedom to read; no freedom.

Richard Ovenden’s 2020 book, Burning the Books, delves into the history of destroying knowledge, but he told IDEAS that “with events like Afghanistan, Ukraine, and the book bannings now, I should be doing another edition of the book. It’s not a historic topic anymore. It’s a very current one.”

From a Florida state law that requires school librarians to remove contested books from classrooms under threat of imprisonment, to Ukrainian librarians risking their lives to save materials targeted by Russian missiles, Ovenden says “unfortunately, there are many new aspects to the threat to knowledge coming about all the time.”

Ovenden’s public lecture in Toronto outlined what he characterizes as “five freedoms that libraries defend for us, and why we must, in turn, defend libraries and archives, as they are at the heart of open, democratic societies.”

Ovenden began with this claim: “By defending libraries and archives we are defending the very idea of a free and open society.” On May 10, 1933 there was an intense attack on libraries in Nazi Germany. In Berlin a bonfire was held and in the presence of nearly 40,000 cheering people a group of students marched up to the bonfire carrying the bust of a Jewish intellectual, Magnus Hirschfeld. The bust was tossed on top of the fire created by the burning of thousands of books from the library of the Institute of Sexual Sciences. The bonfire consisted of books from Jewish and other “ungermane writers” including gays and communist. It is notable that these same groups are currently under attack in America by American Conservatives including neo-Nazis. The fascists are never permanently defeated. They are always around the corner, ready, willing, and able to blossom when conditions are ripe. The greatest fertilizer for the blossoming is always fear and hate. These are the greatest enemies of civilization.

The were eager to impress the new Nazi government in Germany. “According to Ovenden, “the book burning was a carefully planned publicity stunt.”[2]  The Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbells, was there on behalf of the Nazi government to give a speech to thunderous applause, in which he advocated Germans to say

“no to moral decadence and moral corruption; yes to decency, morality, family, and state. The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. You do well to commit to the flames the evil spirits of the past.”

The speech was heard around the world to widespread support and also widespread fear of what was to come. These words did not seem threatening to many people. Autocrats frequently use words and phrases that comfort them. It often seems like they are speaking in favor of civilization and yet they often have a powerful deeper meaning that warns of dangers to freedom. Masses are often persuaded by the opposition to common enemies, such as communism, perversity, or immoral conduct. In our day liberal weakness. Who wouldn’t support that?

But there is an ominous underbelly to the words that makes it clear to those who pay critical attention to them that they succour powerful feelings of illiberal yearnings.

Richard Ovenden gave a talk at the Toronto Library entitled Libraries as Defenders of Open Society in February 2023 as part of its Freedom to Read Week.  His talk was called “Libraries as Defenders of Open Society.” That talk was recorded by CBC radio and formed part of an Ideas radio show hosted by Nahla Ayed who said the following in her opening statement: “Libraries are no longer just book lenders. They’re targets. In the literal and ideological crosshairs.”  During that talk, Richard Ovenden said, “That is an attack on knowledge and free expressions.” This makes it part of the attack on truth-seeking and democracy led by misguided American and Canadian left-wingers and  conservatives.

Sadly, in recent years libraries have become victims in the cultural wars of North America. Manitoba libraries have been also been attacked, but thankfully, so far have not fallen victim to the braying crowd’s assault as so far, brave Manitoba librarians and boards, have protected them and citizens have largely supported them in their battles against protesters from the right. But how long can they withstand those attacks?

As Richard Ovenden said,

“We’ve become too complacent. We’ve allowed these institutions to become battlegrounds for other political motivations. And we need to take to the barricades…Knowledge is under attack. Whether through malice or neglect society today faces profound threats through attacks on knowledge. Attacks that are happening all around us. Libraries and archives, institutions developed over thousands of years, to protect knowledge, and to help society benefit from it, are today a front line of defence against those attacks. That is why we in return must defend libraries and archives as they are at the heart of open democratic societies.”

Public support is absolutely crucial for the continued life of libraries under the present circumstances where many on the right are attacking them relentlessly. Library defenders must make sure their voices are heard when the braying attackers arrive at their library as otherwise the officials defending them may be overwhelmed. Allies must speak bravely, quickly, firmly, and loud enough to be heard by the public and officials in positions of authority over libraries. All must become cognizant that there are defenders of civilization ready to ward off enemy attacks.

Freedom to read is not only important in its own right, it is also essential to the other freedoms we enjoy. For example, they are essential to exercising the freedom to learn.

The current attacks on libraries and archives are coming from both the left and the right. The left attacks them on the basis of its woke ideology.  For example some on the left have asked for the censorship of great novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of it use of admittedly hurtful language.  The right attacks libraries on the basis of its anti-woke ideology. For example, they oppose works of KGBTQ literature.

I would submit that both attacks are pernicious. We must insist that we can read whatever we want.

His 2020 book described historical examples of book burnings and trashed archives, but Ovenden notes that events involving libraries in the last few years have “been a stark reminder of the threats to institutions that most people take for granted.”

Its time for friends of the libraries to speak up.

When I was Chair of the Steinbach Public Library in the 1980s I always worried that we would be attacked by citizens for some of the books we housed. Some of them were quite radical. After all, Steinbach is the home of the eastern Bible Belt. As a result, we worked diligently to prepare a statement of intellectual freedom of which I was quite proud. But during my tenure we never once had need to use it, but it was always a comfort to know it was there so that we could always, if needed launch a principled defence of the books in our library.

Most people have a preconceived notion of what librarians are like.  Many see them as Professional introverts, dull, school marmish, and walled off behind a stack of intimidating books. Most of us grew up thinking of librarians as stern-faced  monitors of their sanctuaries and constantly shushing all who ventured into their domain, particularly young people.

Richard Ovenden is trying to get people to ditch their stereotypes of librarians. He is the 25th Bodley’s Librarian, director of libraries at the University of Oxford, one of the best libraries in the world,  and as well the author of Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge. He gave a very interesting lecture at the Toronto Library which was aired by CBC radio on its flagship show Ideas. At least I think it is their flagship show. I have been listening to it for decades. In fact, I have been listening to it since 1974 when I moved back to Steinbach with my lovely bride Christiane, after I graduated from Law School. We did not own a television set as we borrowed a small portable TV set from my sister.  So I decided to listen to CBC radio because it had no commercials. I loved that.

Recently, I listened to that Ovenden talk and it brought me back to those heady days at the Library.  Since I was a wee lad I had loved to read. Reading was fun and entertaining and in the process, imperceptibly, I learned a few things.

“Richard Ovenden”, according to Nahlah Ayed, the host of Ideas. ” is quietly impassioned about the crucial role libraries play and have always played in free and democratic societies.” In recent years, libraries have been under attack. I thought the danger had long since past. I was wrong about that.

I think it is worth thinking about libraries and books and reading and intend to blog about it.