Beyond Belgium: Royal and Other Adventures of a Librarian Worldwide

Citation

Limb, P. (2005), "Beyond Belgium: Royal and Other Adventures of a Librarian Worldwide", Library Review, Vol. 54 No. 5, pp. 329-330. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530510600606

This fat memoir is significant in that it records the career and impressions of Herman Liebaers, a major figure in the post‐Second World War library world who served in the Belgian Bibliothèque Albert I for 30 years, from 1943, and as Director from 1956, and was elected President of IFLA in 1969. Liebaers has written widely on libraries, from book promotion to the mutual interaction of US and European librarianship.

All this experience would make his memoirs of interest to bibliophiles and librarians, but Liebaers was no mere librarian: in 1974 King Baudouin (1930‐1993) invited him to become his Grand Marshal, a position he held until 1981, after which he became Royal Commissioner for Restructuring of National Research Institutions. Liebaers wrote an earlier volume of memoirs (Mostly in the Line of Duty: Thirty Years with Books. The Hague, 1980) on the 1943‐1973 period, focusing more on libraries than this volume devoted largely to 1973‐1993 and his escapades with royals, though there are still numerous comments on libraries sprinkled through the book.

The book is in three parts, and the bulk is about his work with King Baudouin. There are 182 illustrations reflecting subjects as diverse as the architecture of libraries from Yale to Brussels, rare books, the author's career, royal visits, and the King traversing the Great Wall of China; my own favourite is the final image, a reproduction of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's 1566 amazing painting, “The Librarian”. There is an accurate index, sparing notes and list of abbreviations, brought together in an elegant binding.

The author tells us that (like this reviewer) he became a librarian almost by accident – in his case, a few months after being released by the Gestapo in 1943. He entered libraries and quickly rose through the ranks. Later he travelled widely throughout the world, to Europe, the USSR, Asia, Africa and the US (in 1950 alone he visited 100 US libraries), and there are perceptive comments on such topics as US and European libraries, Belgian nationalism, interference in state affairs by the church, and IFLA. There are four essays in a series on “The Future of the Belgian Monarchy” that well capture the special relationship with its royalty of Belgium's otherwise fractured nation. At times Liebaers was caught offside by history, as with his consultancy to the Shah of Iran. But his erudition is apparent in his tales. After giving a lecture to the Boston Public Library a journalist dubbed Liebaers “king of librarians”, but typical of his wit was his quip that “I was only a librarian among kings.”

Whilst these reminiscences and vignettes are at times both fascinating and quite revealing of the inner sanctum of national libraries, IFLA and royalty (the King was perturbed that Liebaers' IFLA Presidency might compromise his royal duties), the text is marred by sloppy translation, occasional repetition, and a rambling, almost eccentric style exacerbated by the book's length. Apparently American colleagues loosely edited the text, but they do not seem to have corrected all grammatical lapses. Neither is this an analytic work. Yet, the book is not meant to be an academic tome but a memoir, and is in some ways aesthetically pleasing, with interesting anecdotes and illustrations that may attract librarians curious about “life at the top” or ready for a leisurely stroll through the life of a senior figure in the library world. This volume will amuse and delight some readers and be of interest to some librarians, notably IFLA aficionados, library directors, and bibliophiles interested in the history of libraries or in Belgium, but the idiosyncratic nature of the book will tend to limit its audience.