TLRH | ‘Burning the Books’, Series Finale of the Out of the Ashes series

25th May 2021 An online lecture by Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s
Librarian, University of Oxford, and author of Burning the Books: A
History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge (John Murray
Press). Richard Ovenden's lecture will discuss the deliberate
destruction of knowledge held in libraries and archives from
ancient Alexandria to contemporary Sarajevo, from smashed Assyrian
tablets in Iraq to the destroyed immigration documents of the
United Kingdom’s Windrush generation. He will examine both the
motivations for these acts—political, religious, and cultural—and
the broader themes that shape this history. He will also look at
attempts to prevent and mitigate attacks on knowledge, exploring
the efforts of librarians and archivists to preserve information,
often risking their own lives in the process. The event will
include a response by Helen Shenton, College Librarian and
Archivist, Trinity College Dublin. About the speaker Richard
Ovenden has been Bodley’s Librarian (the senior Executive position
of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford) since 2014. Prior
to that he held positions at Durham University Library, the House
of Lords Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the
University of Edinburgh. He moved to the Bodleian in 2003 as Keeper
of Special Collections, becoming Deputy Librarian in 2011. He was
educated at the University of Durham and University College London,
and holds a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford. He
is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Society of
Arts, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society. He was
awarded the OBE in The Queen’s Birthday Honours 2019. Richard
serves as Treasurer of the Consortium of European Research
Libraries, as President of the Digital Preservation Coalition, and
as a member of the Board of the Council on Library and Information
Resources (in Washington DC). He has written extensively on the
history of the book, on the history of photography, and on current
concerns in the library, archive and information worlds. Previous
Books Burning the Books, A History of the Deliberate Destruction of
Knowledge (2020) John Thomson (1837-1921): Photographer (1997) A
Radical’s Books (with Michael Hunter, Giles Mandelbrote, and Nigel
Smith) (1999) About the Out of the Ashes Lecture Series This
three-year lecture series explores the theme of cultural loss and
recovery across the centuries, from the destruction of the Library
of Alexandria in antiquity to contemporary acts of cultural loss
and destruction. Across twelves events, a panel of world-leading
experts has reflected on how societies deal with cultural trauma
through reconstruction and commemoration, and on how the
international community should respond to cultural loss. The series
has been global in scope, pan-historical and multi-disciplinary in
approach, and featured international scholars and practitioners of
the highest calibre. The Out of the Ashes lecture series is
generously supported by Sean and Sarah Reynolds. This evening
lecture forms part of a day-long research showcase from the Beyond
2022: Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury Research Project marking
the centenary of The Custom House Fire, 25 May 2021, organized in
association with the Local Government Archives and Record Managers
and supported by the Government of Ireland, through the Department
of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, under
Project Ireland 2040. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/