A reflection on Book Burnings and the History of Censorship

Through the past few posts I have learnt different ways of searching through various databases and search engines to find the information I needed. Sadly I found that the library catalogue of physical books almost redundant, as access to information on the subject via ejournals, ebooks and articles on the web to be far more accessible and abundant than physical books on the subjects. Which pretty much states that we as librarian technicians need to be able to search for digital sources just as readily and easily as we able to search our catalogue of physical items. Because if we are to narrow our sights to that of just physical content, we are not fully enabling the user to access to all the information that they have available. I think, though, that google should be a last resort, and that we should steer users into using published material in ejournals and ebooks. Although I stated my preference for Wikipedia to be all inclusive in the last post, I don’t not feel it is entirely reliable as it a user based product whose information should be taken with a grain of salt and should be only the starting pointing for locating information.

As I searched through electronic resources I came across some creative material that had been inspired by book burnings that I thought I’d share in my reflective post, as these are other people’s creative reflections of their thoughts on book burning.

Appia, Dominique 1948 '  Entre les Trous de la Memoire' [image], Miserable Bliss, viewed 28 May 2012, < http://miserablebliss.ca/blog/wp-content/entre_les_trous_de_la_memoire.jpg>

I came across numerous artists that have constructed artworks based on book burnings, but there were two that struck a chord with me, as they both reflected how burning can affect the human condition. Entre les Trous de la Memoire, is a painting by Dominique Appia of a young girl burning books while pieces of herself are missing. The painting reflects on the idea of burning bridges, and the act of burning books is much like the way Nazi Germany and Qin Shi Huang burnt books to eradicate the past so there is only the present and the future that now exists and they left their people with large cultural black holes of missing information. More recently an artist by the name of Joe Moorman created a work simply titled Book Burning  to reflect on the Christian book burnings that happened on the streets in the USA. It seems to invoke the plaque in Bebelplatz stating “Wherever books are burnt, men will eventually be burnt.” But not only that, but the skeletons themselves seem like the reapers of books.

Moorman, Joe 'Book Burning' [image], Riverson Fine Art, viewed 28 May 2012, < http://www.riversonfineart.com/images/book_burning.jpg>

In 1953, Ray Bradbury wrote the book Fahrenheit 451, which depicts a bleak future where all the books in the United States are being burnt, much in the same way the Nazi’s did in 1933. But, as Ray Bradbury has stated, the novel was more about how TV made books redundant, but there is no denying how strong the ties are between the events in Nazi Germany to that of the book. Where the “Firemen” were there to destroy information of the past. Check out the trailer for the 1966 movie adaption below:

DIOTD2008 2008, Fahrenheit 451 1966, 19 February, viewed 28 May 2012, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cQ-yGCyjyM>.

References:
Bradbury, Ray 1991, Fahrenheit 451, Del Ray, New York.

MisterMaxHeadroom 2008, Fahrenheit 451, 20 August, viewed 28 May 2012, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9n98SXNGl8>.

Pober Stacey 1992, ‘Farenheit 451’, The Library Journal, July, vol. 117, p. 146, Academic Onefile, Gale Cengage, viewed 28 May 2012.

Domique Appia, Dominique Appia, viewed 28 May 2012, <http://www.appia-d.ch/>

"Book Burning" contemporary figurative painting by Joe Moorman at Riverson Fine Art, Revision Fine Art, viewed 28 May 2012, < http://www.riversonfineart.com/painting_book_burning.htm>