Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe

Written by Kathy Peiss

Narrated by Suzanne Toren

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781980061793

Reviews for Information Hunters

[delan_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book tells a story that has not been told before. It tells the story of the many people who saved the documents, books and pictures produced by the Nazis in WWII. As the author tells us in the Prologue “This book grew our of a chance discovery of an online memorial to an uncle I never knew. Reuben Peiss had been a librarian at Harvard when World War II began … and he was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, the nation’s first intelligence agency.” This reviewer came across the book while doing research on an old professor of mine, Douwe Stuurman. Stuurman is one of the soldiers who contributed to the finding and saving of truckloads of books, documents, pictures, and writings of the time.

[judithrs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded together inWorld WarII Europe. Kathy Peiss. 2020. I was unaware that librarians were part of the effort to gather books and documents published in Europe during WWII. Librarians, archivists and scholars worked with military and intelligence personnel during the war and after the war to help the government. They were the Monuments Men of books! They followed the army into Germany and gathered Nazi documents and also took books from stores and schools. Like the Monuments Men they discovered looted materials hidden in caves and castles and basements. They worked to preserve and these items and get them to the rightful owners. Mistakes were made. Many of the items ended up in the Library of Congress and American academic libraries and some in private hands. Attempts have been made and are still being made to right some of these wrongs. This is a fascinating book, but it is an academic work, and tedious to read at times

[mickyfine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A history focused on the work of American librarians and information professionals who worked to collect materials during the war years for intelligence purposes as well as working to preserve and restitute materials that were hidden during the war.It's a bit hard to review this one as I'm fully aware that I was not in the best head space for focusing on the text when I read it. I will admit to being disappointed that the book was so US-focused as there were occasional references to work being done by the British and Russians in the same field and I would have been curious to see how their work compared. The introduction also notes that the author's uncle was one of the lead officers who did work for the Library of Congress in Europe during the war years collecting material. These sections were the most interesting and other passages with a long litany of acronyms and names working on similar projects didn't hold the same spark. Interesting reading but note that this one requires a good ability to focus when diving in.