Lincoln (Neb.) - Nov. 10, 1997 - Through history, few groups have understood the power of the written word better than conquering armies.
A Nov. 13 lecture at the University of Nebraska will attempt to explain why books are so important to those armies, whether for destruction or removal, and why people will go to great lengths to protect books from looters.
Jeffrey Garrett, humanities bibliographer at Northwestern University, and Sem Sutter, bibliographer for modern literatures at the University of Chicago, will present "Books as Booty" at 7:30 p.m. in the Great Plains Art Collection on the second floor of Love Library, 13th and R streets. The lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served following the program.
Garrett will consider the treatment of books and libraries during the age of Napoleon in Austria and Bavaria, when hundreds of monastic libraries were confiscated and often destroyed by "secularizing" governments. Sutter will discuss the fate of libraries great and small in Eastern Europe during and after World War II.
Garrett and Sutter will show how the juxtaposition of these two experiences offers some insight into the confiscatory mentality of the conquerors and the lengths to which the conservators of these books have gone to protect their treasures.
The lecture is sponsored by the Friends of the Libraries,
the European studies program, and the departments of history and
political science.
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