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Information hunters : when librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War II Europe

Author

Peiss, Kathy Lee, author.

Title

Information hunters : when librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War II Europe / Kathy Peiss.

Format

Book

Published

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020] ©2020

Description

xi, 277 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Portion of title

When librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War II Europe

Variant title

When librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War Two Europe When librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War 2 Europe

Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 217-259) and index.

Contents

• The country of the mind must also attack
• Librarians and collectors go to war
• The wild scramble for documents
• Acquisitions on a grand scale
• Fugitive records of war
• Book burning, American style
• Not a library, but a large depot of loot.

Summary

"Information Hunters examines the unprecedented American effort to acquire foreign publications and information in World War II Europe. An unlikely band of librarians, scholars, soldiers, and spies went to Europe to collect books and documents to aid the Allies' cause. They travelled to neutral cities to find enemy publications for intelligence analysis and followed advancing armies to capture records in a massive program of confiscation. After the war, they seized Nazi works from bookstores and schools and gathered together countless looted Jewish books. Improvising library techniques in wartime conditions, they contributed to Allied intelligence, preserved endangered books, engaged in restitution, and participated in the denazification of book collections. Information Hunters explores what collecting meant to the men and women who embarked on these missions, and how the challenges of a total war led to an intense focus on books and documents. It uncovers the worlds of collecting, in spy-ridden Stockholm and Lisbon, in liberated Paris and devastated Berlin, and in German caves and mineshafts. The wartime collecting missions had lasting effects. They intensified the relationship between libraries and academic institutions, on the one hand, and the government and military, on the other. Book and document acquisition became part of the apparatus of national security, military planning, and postwar reconstruction. These efforts also spurred the development of information science and boosted research libraries' ambitions to be great national repositories for research and the dissemination of knowledge that would support American global leadership, politically and intellectually."-- Provided by publisher.

Subject headings

United States. Office of Strategic Services. Library of Congress Mission to Germany. World War, 1939-1945--Confiscations and contributions--Europe. World War, 1939-1945--Military intelligence--United States. Books--Europe--History--20th century. Intelligence service--United States--Information services. Librarians--United States--History--20th century. Acquisitions (Libraries)--United States--History--20th century. Cultural property--Protection--Europe--History--20th century. World War, 1939-1945--Destruction and pillage--Europe.

Genre heading

History.

ISBN

9780190944612 hardcover 0190944617 hardcover 9780190944636 electronic book 9780190944629 electronic book