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.