The New Monastic Librarians

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

In his book The Twilight of American Culture (Norton, 2000), the social critic Morris Berman foresees a looming dark age when much of Western learning could be eclipsed. The evidence is all around us, he says: the numbing reign of corporate influence, the mania for credentials over true learning, and a populace rendered nearly illiterate by its addiction to dumbed-down mass entertainment. While that might seem like reason enough for despair, Berman looks to an ancient tradition for hope. Like those who once copied texts as a way to save them for a more enlightened time, a cadre of "new monastic individuals" must take up the task of protecting the knowledge they love.

As in every age, there are those who live for something other than fame, fortune, or mere survival. In their days, work and play are blurred. They may be poets, thinkers, listeners, artisans, or savers of seeds; people who keep languages alive or guard wild, beautiful places. They tend to be iconoclasts who, in Berman's words, "don't try to elevate their iconoclasm into a new movement." Berman doesn't mention librarians, but he could have. Many still regard the institutions in which they work with reverence, as storehouses of a culture's wisdom, and quietly work to preserve them. Here are just a few.

Julie Herrada Archiving The Edges

Back when Julie Herrada was assistant curator at the Labadie Collection at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, she worked to acquire what some would consider a dubious prize: the papers of Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber. In early 1997, about a year after Kaczynski's mail bombings ended with his arrest, Herrada first wrote to his attorney and "asked for everything, including manuscripts, journals, correspondence, photographs, and legal papers." As she recounts in Archival Issues, the journal of the Midwest Archives Conference, an agreement was reached in 1999. Not everyone was thrilled. One talk show host "urged listeners to call the university library and complain."

The Labadie Collection is full of papers that many might rather burn. Founded in the early 20th century from the vast radical literature saved by Detroit anarchist printer Joseph Labadie and his wife, Sophie, the collection has been overseen by a series of dedicated archivists. Herrada took the reins in 2000. Her additions include many books, journals, zines, fliers, and buttons devoted to freethinking, radicalism, and dissent. She travels to anarchist book fairs the way other librarians attend Book Expo America.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print