The Double Role of the Library.

Throughout the reading a question that constantly appeared in my mind was this idea that a library is lost to history and replaced by more history. All the events that occurred and led to the demolition of ancients texts and knowledge was a reflection of the people in power at that specific time. As you lose knowledge, new ideas are being gained.

One line in Battles, Burning Alexandria, that really left an impact was this idea that, “Libraries are as much about losing the truth – satisfying the inner barbarians of princes, presidents, and pretenders – as about discovering it.” The burnings of ancient texts, from ancient China in the East to the Aztec civilization of the far west, were symbols of a violent transfer of power and a display of dominance. In face of the travesty of losing knowledge to our past, what we gain from the destruction is this universal idea that human nature wants to retain power by usurping knowledge. The irony that preserved knowledge from the ancient world is determined by the “needs and tastes of private readers and collectors” instead of the public libraries is a statement that known knowledge can hold itself as a threat. Battles goes on to say that “the loss of libraries is often enough the product of the fear, ignorance, and greed of their supposed benefactors and protectors.” The library as a sanctuary for knowledge was persecuted by the very individuals whom the library expected to protect its existence.

This idea that the burning of libraries and history begets more history is well defined by Emperor Qin ShiHuang’s burning of the books of China’s antiquated past. “Without the story of burned books, many more books might never have been written.” This idea that history is built from the ravaging of other historical pasts is as very much a part of now as it was then. Librarians today are also of the judge of what books stay and what books leave (of course not the extreme of burning the books). As humans we are constantly rewriting our history by displacing or even purposely losing it.