Disaster and After: The Practicalities of Information Service in Times of War and Other Catastrophes: Proceedings of an International Conference Sponsored by IGLA (International Group of the Library Association), 4‐6 September 1998, University of Bristol

Citation

Hendry, J.D. (2000), "Disaster and After: The Practicalities of Information Service in Times of War and Other Catastrophes: Proceedings of an International Conference Sponsored by IGLA (International Group of the Library Association), 4‐6 September 1998, University of Bristol", Library Review, Vol. 49 No. 7, pp. 351-360. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2000.49.7.351.8

It is an old adage – but they tend to be true – that out of bad comes good. At least, some good. Disasters are clearly “bad” in this context. “Afterwards” often has good in it. Not all good, perhaps. But a positive element nevertheless.

This collection of essays in some cases represents the heartbreak of man’s inhumanity to man, and sometimes man’s perseverance and commitment to such special aspects of civilisation as a dedication to preserving and rescuing a nation’s history, despite all the odds. In such a context many of these essays are an inspiration in their own right. It was heartening, for example, to read in Derek Law’s introduction of the growing understanding in IFLA that that organisation has a role and a voice which can be used to mitigate the effects of conflicts and disasters in a planned manner. It is right, too, to seize the opportunity to make virtue out of necessity, as Law asserts when he concludes that every disaster should be seized as an opportunity to improve people’s lives through the development or improvement of information services as a keystone of the recovery process.

Each essay in this collection is different, unique and chastening. It is very difficult to be dispassionate when reading John Dean’s paper on the recent circumstances of Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Just two sentences might suffice: “The United States and the North Vietnamese both proceeded to violate Laos neutrality, and for ten years the country was heavily involved in the Vietnam war. By its end, more than two million tons of bombs had been dropped on Laos, making it the most heavily bombed country per capita in the history of warfare, and a quarter of the population was displaced.” (Dean, p. 40).

The effects of the Linkoping fire in the town library, Sweden, are graphically described, as are the processes and procedures that local staff and townspeople went through. It must be horrific to see a city library (Norwich) destroyed by an electrical fault. But surely the feelings of those in Linkoping must defy description when you learn that a pyromaniac burnt down the local town library!The tragedies of the Polish floods, the war in Eritrea, Chernobyl, Sarajevo and the Palestinian Intafida are also documented here. They make chastening reading.

Finally, to try and reduce some of these traumas to a more human scale of personal knowledge, this reviewer would cite the circumstances of the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, and its dedicated staff, and once again led by a remarkable librarian, in this case John Gray. The Linen Hall Library is the oldest in Belfast, founded in 1788, and the last surviving subscription library in Ireland. Its formal title, still with echoes of its eighteenth century Enlightenment vision, is The Belfast Library and Society for Promoting Knowledge. During “the troubles” of the last 30 years in Northern Ireland, the Linen Hall has demonstrated a remarkable courage and vision as well as a commitment to the profession of librarianship at its most liberal, neutral and enlightened best. The Linen Hall has developed a philosophy of “involved neutrality” where it has for some 30 years of these “troubles” in Northern Ireland collected the only systematic archive of 30 years of conflict there. The collection, The Northern Ireland Political Collection, now totals over 135,000 items. It is by far the most heavily used research collection in what is otherwise an historic library. Robert Fisk, the distinguished journalist and author, has observed that both in relation to this conflict in Northern Ireland and to other conflicts: “I can think of no comparable institution in a place of such political and social division that has been able to amass such a record.”

This record is central to the record of life in Northern Ireland over the last 30 years. These circumstances may be unique, in the UK at least. But there are lessons and examples for all of the library profession in this remarkable story. The Linen Hall, by its sheer commitment to its community and its staff’s equally committed determination to the survival of the Library, despite attempts to close it or marginalise it by people who should have known better, is an example to every public librarian who feels threatened, disregarded or, financially at least, under siege, to fight for what they believe in. And for those of a community librarianship philosophy, or those community workers who still hark back to the community development projects of the 1970s and early 1980s, we would do well to heed John Gray: “while librarians have to some extent justifiably been preoccupied with the globalisation of the information world and the implications of the IT revolution, they have all too easily ignored a reverse phenomenon evident at their own front door, the explosion of printing as a weapon of the disenfranchised.” A special essay, and a special collection.