It is always interesting to read a book’s acknowledgment pages. I invariably make a point of doing so, even if the names mean nothing to me. Mindful of those who merit or may be expecting to be thanked for having assisted the author along the way, people are acknowledged according to particular categories. There are long-standing mentors who helped the author get to where they are today, close colleagues, friends who have supported them through thick and thin, authorities in the field whose knowledge and influence need to be recognised, and usually ending with family, whose forbearance and love is recognised as being the most valued contribution of all. Some author can be gushing in their thanks, some terse. Most are generous while a few try ever so politely to settle a few scores. But the essential framework remains.
Among the acknowledgments for any work of non-fiction must come the thanks given to archives and libraries. As a proud former member of that community, I am naturally pleased to see when any such institution is thanked, especially so when it is a place where I have been employed (acknowledgments to the British Library are practically obligatory for any sort of non-fiction research in the UK, indeed questions might be asked if you had overlooked it). Such acknowledgments recognise the great value that archives and libraries must have for almost any kind of research, and by extension the large amount of time the researcher is likely to have spent in such a place when investigating their topic. The thanks range from general acknowledgment of the institution, to thanking individual departments, to naming individuals that were especially helpful. It is a graceful thing to do. Thank you to all those of you who have done so.
Then I came across an acknowledgment to librarians that was unlike any I had come across before now. It’s in Douglas Keith Candland’s book Feral Children and Clever Animals: Reflections on Human Nature (Oxford University Press, 1993), which I picked up in an antiquarian bookshop recently. Here’s the full final paragraph, in which the author thanks those at the library of his institution, Bucknell University:
Ann Gibson, in charge of interlibrary loans at the Ellen Clarke Bertrand Library was a cheerful detective, as were Jean Bingham and James van Fleet. Tom Mattern, also of the library staff, showed himself equal to the questions I put to him. Throughout the writing of the manuscript, my respect grew for the contributions of four long-dead librarians, who, it became evident, were responsible for collecting and maintaining Bucknell’s splendid collection of nineteenth-century materials. They were Professors Enoch Perrine (1885-1887), Freeman Loomis (1887-1894), William Martin (1894-1922), and Eliza Martin (1922-1938). I hope it is not too late to thank them.
Every day new books, newspapers, journals, websites, moving images, sound recordings and other texts are published, and someone has to collect them to ensure that they survive beyond their fleeting commercial life. Some come in effectively automatically, through statutory and business arrangements, but many more are the decision of an archivist, curator or librarian, who may purchase stuff (assuming that they have a budget to do so), take in donations, or simply find things. Occasionally such acquisitions are notable because of the price paid for them, their rarity or their cultural value. But most of it is mundane – seeing things, judging them worthwhile (usually with a collecting policy to guide such decisions), often acting on hunches.
It’s the hunches that matter especially. It is easy enough to pick the publication that reflects a current area of public interest. The skill, especially for a research library, lies in seeing that which isn’t important now, but might be in the future. The good librarian sees things timelessly. That which was, is, or might be of value to someone weigh equally. Though most public libraries must rotate stock, because of storage limitations, and have to gear themselves in the main to public tastes, they must always have that ‘was/is/might be’ calculation in mind. It comes from a deep understanding of things, and deep-rooted principle.
The work of librarians (and archivists, and curators) is changing. Increasingly, instead of selecting content, such as books, they are pointing to it. Libraries get used for Internet access and for access to a variety of electronic information and online library services (which have in their turn been curated). What is on the shelves is only a part of it, though its visibility makes it that which still defines libraries – and is putting the gentle profession of librarianship in the firing line of the culture wars.
It seems scarcely credible that in so-called advanced societies libraries should be under attack, but the politicised moralising of our times has created a climate of aggression and some danger. Politicians and parents want to see books of which they do not approve taken off the shelves, viewing libraries and librarians as agents of propaganda. It has led to the American Library Association having to issue a ‘Freedom to Read‘ statement (based on one originally formulated in 1953). It is a particularly noble and well-expressed argument linking reading with democracy. One paragraph links the freedom to read with those hunches on the future:
Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. The written word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. It is essential to the extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.
Librarians, particularly in America, are being viewed by those with the most virulent opinions as enemies. They are attacked on social media and threatened with violence in real life. PEN America has had to produce a guide for librarians facing harassment and threats. Louisiana librarian Amanda Jones has notably fought back with her best-selling book That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, documenting her fight against those who would see books on social, racial and sexual diversity removed from the shelves. Jones features in the recently-released American documentary The Librarians, a title that you can’t imagine giving to any film seeking distribution previously, but which now seems urgent.
Perrine, Loomis, Martin and Martin never had to fight such battles (even if the present moral panic feels like it has its roots in the misplaced certainties of the Victorian era). They simply saw to it that what had been, was, and might in the future be of value to their library was acquired and sustained. They saw that from reading springs forth everything, and that reading makes us free. Librarians, whether present or past, named or unnamed, are our best friends. We should always be thanking them.
Links
- Historical timelines of Bucknell University, including its library, can be found at https://www.departments.bucknell.edu/edu/bu_history_old/photo_history (somewhat awkwardly organised) and here (ditto)
- The American Library Association’s ‘Freedom to Read’ statement can be read at https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/freedomreadstatement
- This week, 5-11 October 2025, is Banned Books Week in the UK. Here’s a historically-informed reading list provided by Index on Censorship
