The contents of library shelves reflect the culture around us. This would possibly reflect adjustments in ideologies, popular culture, and political leadership. Consider the many White House memoirs and briefings that were published during Donald Trump’s presidency. And think of all the fiction, poetry, and graphic novels encouraged through COVID-19.
Literature also plays a role in times of war. It can be used to justify or oppose a conflict. Such content can take the form of academic analysis, journalistic investigations, fictitious reflections, and even propaganda.
Information as a weapon
I became very aware of propaganda from 2014. The Russian books sent to Toronto brought Moscow’s remote politics to my table in a very genuine way. The university library won books titled “Crimea with Russia,” “Ukraine: Chaos and Revolution as Dollar Weapons,” and “The Battlefield is Ukraine: The Damaged Trident. “
The authors of those books have put forward ancient and legal arguments for Crimea’s reintegration with Russia. These publications deny or ridicule the lifestyle of a Ukrainian state and country with its own language and customs. They accused the U. S. of being a U. S. The U. S. and NATO support Orange. Revolution and the Maidan uprising to break the “Russian world”.
The State Radio and Television Broadcasting Committee of Ukraine reviews and restricts content deemed “anti-Ukrainian”. Lately there are three hundred titles on the list of publications of the committee aimed at “eliminating the independence of Ukraine”.
Chytomo, an online media outlet covering publication in Ukraine, has compiled a subset of the fifty atrocious maximum examples.
Ukraine is not alone in censoring literature. Russia’s Ministry of Justice maintains a federal list of extremist documents. It includes more than 5300 articles, books, songs and other online content. Extremist works include texts critical of Russian authorities, publications by Muslim theologians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, and Ukraine-like content. Forbidden Ukrainian books deal with topics such as the Holodomor and the Ukrainian liberation movements of the twentieth century.
Advertising in libraries
The libraries of the University of Toronto are the only ones that have copies of books banned in Ukraine or Russia. According to WorldCat, 44 of the 50 titles on Chytomo’s list are in more than one North American library. These degrees can be found in the most prestigious university libraries in the United States, such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Duke.
In addition, members of the East Coast Slavic Library Collections Consortium obtain and maintain fabrics that have been banned in Ukraine and Russia.
Libraries emphasize free and equitable access to data and seek to build balanced collections. The Code of Ethics urges librarians to respect intellectual freedom, which is the right of each and every individual to seek and obtain data from all viewpoints without restriction. Reject restrictions on access to clothing based on partisan or doctrinal disapproval, whether through individuals, governments, or devout and civic institutions.
Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Stalin’s complete works can serve as the number one resource for reading society at any given time. The incendiary mantle of supply plays the same function.
Mel Bach, a librarian at the University of Cambridge, writes that libraries “buy with bad taste and worse, from all over the world, giving readers the opportunity to examine the extremes that are, in devastating ways, part of reality. “. “
Buying such does not mean that libraries approve the content.
Confronting misinformation
Dealing with propaganda in its most harmful form, disinformation, requires academics and researchers to possess fit literacy skills. These skills come with the ability to locate, critically evaluate, and use skills well will distinguish others from valid or reliable facts from those intended to harm or incite violence.
The Russian government’s use of anti-Ukrainian disinformation to justify its war has resulted in civilian deaths, mass destruction, and the risk of nuclear devastation. Many libraries, e-book collections and cultural sites have been destroyed or lost.
Placing propaganda papers on shelves alongside scholarships on similar topics can lend legitimacy to disinformation and war propaganda. People would possibly expand ideals based on the data they have and settle for that data as fact.
Laura Saunders of Simmons University succinctly summarizes the moral factor of libraries and militarized data. It asks “whether there are major or more culpable tactics to collect, organize, and make available data that is known to be erroneous or discredited so that it is censored but also promoted as a valid or authoritative source. “
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