an honorable profession...

While I was in Denver a few weeks ago I had an opportunity view an amazing traveling exhibition called "Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings" at the Central Branch of the Denver Public Library System. The exhibit, created by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, relates haunting messages about the power of free speech and the harrowing consequences of censorship. It also highlights the important role libraries and librarians have taken to defend intellectual freedoms. This example from the exhibit: In April 1942, book publishers and booksellers formed the Council on Books in Wartime “to help win the war through books.” Sponsored also by the American Library Association, the P.E.N. American Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Association of Adult Education, the council adopted the slogan “Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas.” It published nearly 123 million inexpensive paperback copies of 1,322 titles as Armed Services Editions for American troops, including works by authors whose books had been burned or banned in Nazi Germany. It also supported a host of home-front activities—radio programs, book burning anniversary observances, window displays, exhibitions, editorials, cartoons, articles, book drives and book fairs—all designed to emphasize the importance of books in wartime. So take a look. And be proud of your profession.