UPC: 9780190944612 | Information Hunters: When Librarians Soldiers and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe (Hardcover)

UPC lookup results for: 9780190944612 | Information Hunters: When Librarians Soldiers and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe (Hardcover)

While armies have seized enemy records and rare texts as booty throughout history it was only during World War II that an unlikely band of librarians archivists and scholars traveled abroad to collect books and documents to aid the military cause. Galvanized by the events of war into acquiring and preserving the written word as well as providing critical information for intelligence purposes these American civilians set off on missions to gather foreign publications and information across Europe. They journeyed to neutral cities in search of enemy texts followed a step behind advancing armies to capture records and seized Nazi works from bookstores and schools. When the war ended they found looted collections hidden in cellars and caves. Their mission was to document exploit preserve and restitute these works and even in the case of Nazi literature to destroy them. In this fascinating account cultural historian Kathy Peiss reveals how book and document collecting became part of the new apparatus of intelligence and national security military planning and postwar reconstruction. Focusing on the ordinary Americans who carried out these missions she shows how they made decisions on the ground to acquire sources that would be useful in the war zone as well as on the home front. These collecting missions also boosted the postwar ambitions of American research libraries offering a chance for them to become great international repositories of scientific reports literature and historical sources. Not only did their wartime work have lasting implications for academic institutions foreign-policy making and national security it also led to the development of today s essential information science tools. Illuminating the growing global power of the United States in the realms of intelligence and cultural heritage Peiss tells the story of the men and women who went to Europe to collect and protect books and information and in doing so enriches the debates over the use of data in times of both war and peace.