"In Service to the State" by Wayne Wiegand

I was astounded that during the war librarians with the notable exception of John Dana thought it their express duty as part of a government service to support one side of the war propaganda. I think this kind of article written about WWII would not be so disturbing to people today, simply because Germany and the Allies are in public opinion extremely condemnable for identifiable atrocities and ideological flaws. But the extreme nature of war mania in WWI when there wasn’t an identifiable reason to hate all things German and not provide their side of the propaganda effort simply for posterity is very disturbing. That librarians would actually admit that they wanted to take German language literature simply to avoid being put on the defensive clearly refutes the stereotype that librarians have of themselves as savers of culture and literature of all kinds in a ‘freedom of information’ kind of way.

This article brought to light perennial questions about librarians’ jobs and the library’s mission within a community, but also questions that need to be asked about our attitudes and beliefs today about libraries in America. Should a library seek to have a slant, or try to be completely impartial? To what degree is censorship still alive today in public libraries? Is there any credibility that as institutions run with government money, public libraries must act as an information distribution center for pro-government works? How closely should libraries act with national or state governments, considering the passage of the PATRIOT Act in the post-9/11 world? In the spirit of impartiality, should libraries try to preserve all kinds of literature, and should those collections be the exact same as those available to the public? How do we feel about libraries making white supremacist or Muslim radical literature available to the public?

This article really made me think about the purpose of the library, and I haven’t really got a good answer to all of the questions listed above that came to mind. What is clear to me is that this kind of library history should be a part of every librarian’s curriculum in school. The history of a profession is vital to how one views it in the present.