We Are the Guardians

Interesting title I know, but lately I've been going through this stage of thinking about all the good things a library is there for. For those of you out there that think a library is the heart of the community, then I congratulate you. There are a lot of things people don't know about libraries that I think should be shared,even about us librarians ourselves. (However we might look, be it granny style, or hip hotties.)

So why the title 'We Are the Guardians', because we truly are guardians. Not even three hundred years ago people burned books and called anyone that tried to learn to read the tongue of any book, including the Bible were burned at the stake as heretics. It took brave people to provide even the basic knowledge to the masses. The only ones to safely preserve material from Kings were monks, and monasteries.

Only a hundred and thirty years ago, in 1880,  it wasn't even thought of to have a library in small towns. If it hadn't been for Melvil Dewie, and his simple idea of getting knowledge out to small communities and not just to the rich did it come possible for everyday people to learn to read.

Not even a hundred years ago, in 1933, Hitler campaigned to have all the books in Germany burned. Some 100,000 books were destroyed in one evening in Opernplatz where 40,000 people came to support it. Some of the oldest manuscripts found in human history burned that day, because people believed it wrong for 'Un-German' books to reside in the halls of their libraries. Not just that but even the librarians that tried to protect those books and many other pieces of literature were killed or imprisoned. All because of censorship or ruler-ship.

So the next time you walk into a library, look at the librarian a little different. When you are simply walking through the stacks (as we call them), looking for that one book that has stuck in your mind for some time, remember why we are here. We are the guardians of knowledge, insuring the simplistic censorship of books doesn't become the norm, and that those books aren't lost to the up-and-coming generations.

We are the Guardians, and we intend to protect knowledge... that is our pledge when we sit down to that desk in the morning ready to serve to you that knowledge.

(So maybe give us a salute or something, we kind of deserve it when you think about it.)

Sincerely,
The Egg Wolfing, Exhausted Librarian