Libraries & Culture articles from January 2001

Libraries & Culture archives from January 2001

Preface.(the importance of reading/writing)
January 1, 2001... One monumental night in June 1996 we were on a train somewhere between Vologda and Moscow. The colloquium "Reading and Libraries in Times of Cultural Changes" had just recently concluded. The American and Russian participants, especially, had...

Editorial note.(Editorial)
January 1, 2001... My delight in introducing these essays is a special one, not just because I am the editor of the journal in which they appear for the first time in published form for a wider community, but also because I was a participant in the extraordinary...

"With malice toward none": IFLA and the Cold War.
January 1, 2001... The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) strengthened its international character and maintained its political neutrality throughout the tense years of the Cold War. Literature dealing with this period in history describes an...

A Soviet research library remembered.
January 1, 2001... The author, curator of the Slavic and Baltic Division at the New York Public Library, reflects on his first experience with libraries and archives during a year of research in the former Soviet Union in 1971-72. Kasinec experienced both the...

The overseas libraries controversy and the freedom to read: U.S. librarians and publishers confront Joseph McCarthy.
January 1, 2001... In the early Cold War years, censorship pressures on libraries led in 1948 to the adoption of a strengthened Library Bill of Rights by the American Library Association (ALA). In 1953 pressures intensified when Senator Joseph McCarthy opened an...

The effect of the cold war on librarianship in China.
January 1, 2001... Librarianship in China can be divided into four distinct areas because of the Cold War. The first period covers approximately 1840 to 1949. When Chinese intellectuals realized that Chinese libraries were underdeveloped, they began looking at...

Political censorship in Finnish libraries from 1944 to 1946.
January 1, 2001... Ekholm presents an overview of the forms that library censorship took in postwar Finland when the country was under the auspices of a Soviet Controlling Commission (Valvontakomissio). He demonstrates that censorship of library materials...

Books and libraries as instruments of cultural diplomacy in Francophone Africa during the Cold War.
January 1, 2001... During the period of the Cold War, Britain, France, and the United States employed similar strategies in the cultural efforts they directed toward Francophone Africa; all three countries sponsored language instruction and set up cultural...

Censors and their readers: selling, silencing, and reading Czech books.
January 1, 2001... The Nazi and Communist regimes in Czechoslovakia greatly impacted book publishing and distribution. During these periods, censorship was state controlled in an official sphere of government and was part of the processes of canon formation of...

Control of literary communication in the 1945-1956 period in Poland.
January 1, 2001... Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1944, Polish Communists created censorship authorities to control literary communication in the country. Beginning with a censor's office within the temporary government, several offices were...

International harmony: threat or menace? U.S. youth services librarians and Cold War censorship, 1946-1955.
January 1, 2001... The traditional stance of youth services librarians has been strong advocacy on behalf of children's books that promote intergroup cooperation and international understanding. With the onset of the McCarthy era, however, books with an...

Le Comite de Defense de la Litterature et de la Presse pour la Jeunesse: the Communists and the press for children during the Cold War.
January 1, 2001... French children's periodicals underwent some significant changes between the years 1933 and 1954. French publishing houses and press agencies came under attack for being unduly influenced by and saturated with subversive American cartoons and...

Reading in the context of censorship in the soviet union.
January 1, 2001... This essay discusses the reading of literature in the environment of censorship preceding the disbandment of the U.S.S.R. The Soviet authority's mission was to forestall the collapse of the Communist regime by attempting to strengthen...

Symbolic censorship and control of appropriations: the French Communist party facing "heretical" texts during the Cold War.
January 1, 2001... The author examines the methods used by the French Communist party (FCP) during the Cold War to control and neutralize the effects of anti-Communist or heretical texts as challenges to its ideology. The FCP was faced with a free publishing...

American literature in Cold War Germany.
January 1, 2001... During the Cold War period following World War II, the United States made a decision to reestablish culture in Germany rather than risk Soviet expansion into Western Europe. Due to the atrocities committed by Germany during the war, it was hard...

A Cold War best-seller: the reaction to Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon in France from 1945 to 1950.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2001... Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon served as the pioneer publication denouncing Stalinist strategies. First released in 1940 in London, Jewish publishers reissued subsequent French editions of Darkness at Noon in the mid-1940s amidst a climate...

Library secret fonds and the competition of societies.
January 1, 2001... The competition between the socialist/Communist social system and the capitalist social system elicited a need for secrecy. This ideological battle took place during the Cold War, which is conceptually defined as "the unarmed development of a...

Cold War librarianship: Soviet and American library activities in support of national foreign policy, 1946-1991.
January 1, 2001... The author examines the international rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War and how ideological premises were used to bring libraries into the conflict. In the aftermath of World War II, the two superpowers...

Foreign libraries in the mirror of Soviet library science during the Cold War.
January 1, 2001... This essay focuses on how the political climate of the Cold War--era U.S.S.R. affected Soviet librarians' ability to study and write about libraries in capitalist countries. The author refers extensively to papers published in major Soviet...

Finland pays its debts and gets books in return: ASLA grants to the Finnish academic libraries, 1950-1967.
January 1, 2001... This essay examines the political and historical context, implementation, and effects of the ASLA program and especially how it was used to fund the purchase of American books for Finnish academic libraries during the years 1950-67. In 1949 the...

Romanian libraries recover after the cold war: the communist legacy and the road ahead.
January 1, 2001... There is an urgent need for current leaders to stem the neglect suffered by Romanian libraries during the Communist years by acknowledging the importance of the library as an institution and by providing financial support to move the libraries...

Leaning to one side: the impact of the Cold War on Chinese library collections.
January 1, 2001... Membership in the Soviet Union-led Communist bloc and the economic embargo imposed by the West led to China's reliance on the Soviet bloc in library development. To spur economic reconstruction and consolidate political power after founding the...

The cover.
January 1, 2001... On 1 October 1999 the United States Information Agency (USIA) was abolished, and its programs were integrated into the U.S. Department of State. This action brought full circle a series of reorganizations and administrative changes of the...

Announcement of conference speakers.(Communications)(Library Research Seminar)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... The Library Research Seminar Planning Committee is pleased to announce the four exceptional speakers who will lead the conference in November 2001. Dr. Phyllis Dain (formerly professor of library service at Columbia University) and Dr. Kathleen...