From the Academy

T nose vociferous misguided citizens who desire to compel the removal of The Scarlet Letter or Little Black Sambo or 1984 from the shelves of public libraries are not the only in- temperate censors. Sometimes librar- ians themselves literally become book- burners. One of the more amusing cases in point has to do with Mr. Ray Brad- _bury’s romance Fahrenheit 451— which, of course, is about the des- truction by fire of all literature in a> democratic despotism of the not-very- distant future. An educational firm sent to a school library a consignment of books for small children, among which a copy of Fahrenheit 451 was included by error. he femate l= brarian of this school dispatched a furious letter to the company, re- proaching them for sending “such a horrible book.” She concluded by declaring, “I took if right out in back and burned it immediately.” Ray Bradbury’s vatici- nations were fulfilled. In various states, during recent months, complaints have been made that state or local public libraries re- fuse to catalogue or circulate certain valuable books because of doctrinaire prejudice against the views of the authors. Your servant has consider- able recent experience of ignorance and prejudice by librarian-bureau- crats. This year I donated several hundred books to our little local li- brary. These, with other donations, were sent to a regional library head- quarters for cataloguing and for re- moval of any that seemed unfit for the general public. When the final lot had been returned to our village, members of the library board, to their vexation, discovered that nearly half the books I had donated were missing. Inquiries were made; the district officials were somewhat evasive, but admitted that those excluded had been burned, literally, and so could not be restored to our library. We proceeded to check on the victims. About 20 per cent of the books I gave had to do with politics or cur- rent affairs; of these, slightly more than half might be classified as liberal, Kirk

formity; FROM THE CADEMY RUSSELL KIRK and the rest as conservative. The great majority of conservatively-in- clined books had been destroyed— but so, too, had a number of the more serious liberal books (perhaps in error).

RK

About the Author

Russell Kirk

T nose vociferous misguided citizens who desire to compel the removal of The Scarlet Letter or Little Black Sambo or 1984 from the shelves of public libraries are not the only in- temperate censors. Sometimes librar- ians themselves literally become book- burners. One of the more amusing cases in point has to do with Mr. Ray Brad- _bury’s romance Fahrenheit 451— which, of course, is about the des- truction by fire of all literature in a> democratic despotism of the not-very- distant future. An educational firm sent to a school library a consignment of books for small children, among which a copy of Fahrenheit 451 was included by error. he femate l= brarian of this school dispatched a furious letter to the company, re- proaching them for sending “such a horrible book.” She concluded by declaring, “I took if right out in back and burned it immediately.” Ray Bradbury’s vatici- nations were fulfilled. In various states, during recent months, complaints have been made that state or local public libraries re- fuse to catalogue or circulate certain valuable books because of doctrinaire prejudice against the views of the authors. Your servant has consider- able recent experience of ignorance and prejudice by librarian-bureau- crats. This year I donated several hundred books to our little local li- brary. These, with other donations, were sent to a regional library head- quarters for cataloguing and for re- moval of any that seemed unfit for the general public. When the final lot had been returned to our village, members of the library board, to their vexation, discovered that nearly half the books I had donated were missing. Inquiries were made; the district officials were somewhat evasive, but admitted that those excluded had been burned, literally, and so could not be restored to our library. We proceeded to check on the victims. About 20 per cent of the books I gave had to do with politics or cur- rent affairs; of these, slightly more than half might be classified as liberal, Kirk

formity; FROM THE CADEMY RUSSELL KIRK and the rest as conservative. The great majority of conservatively-in- clined books had been destroyed— but so, too, had a number of the more serious liberal books (perhaps in error).