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A review by michaelnlibrarian
Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe by Kathy Peiss
5.0
With my interests, this was a remarkable book. I am moderately interested in history of World War II and separately from that librarianship, so this book which features discussion of librarians (and others) during and shortly after WWII was remarkable.
The author is not a librarian - one of the most remarkable aspects of this book is the author's clear grasp and discussion of library related issues.
https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015762 - has publisher's summary of the book.
Table of 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.
The book moves from discussion of librarians and others assisting to gather open source materials to support intelligence activities against Nazi Germany to librarians (and again others) working to assure repatriation of Nazi-seized collections from Jews and others to their rightful owners with other subjects mixed in.
https://www.loc.gov/item/mff000208/ photograph of the Library of Congress Mission (LCM) who traveled to Europe after the end of WWII. "Photograph of [Librarian of Congress] Luther Harris Evans and Members of the European Mission, January 1946".
The author is not a librarian - one of the most remarkable aspects of this book is the author's clear grasp and discussion of library related issues.
https://lccn.loc.gov/2019015762 - has publisher's summary of the book.
Table of 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.
The book moves from discussion of librarians and others assisting to gather open source materials to support intelligence activities against Nazi Germany to librarians (and again others) working to assure repatriation of Nazi-seized collections from Jews and others to their rightful owners with other subjects mixed in.
https://www.loc.gov/item/mff000208/ photograph of the Library of Congress Mission (LCM) who traveled to Europe after the end of WWII. "Photograph of [Librarian of Congress] Luther Harris Evans and Members of the European Mission, January 1946".