In "Les Bibliotheques Francaises sous l'Occupation," Marine Poulain describes how the Nazis stole about 10 million books over four years from both French public and private libraries.

I can't help but think that had Google been around in 1939, this would not have happened. And thanks to them, it will never happen again.

For all that we are debating about the good and bad of digitizing books, or how technology will affect the way we read, manipulate ideas or simply create them, one can only rejoice at the fact that "out-of-print" can be deleted from the dictionary and that robbing a people's cultural patrimony is forever dead.  

It is always great to read that libraries are doing much better than one thinks...especially if they are located in rural areas.

In its September 11 edition, The Economist reports on Burns, Wyoming. An article appropriately titled: "Why Cowboys read" Check it out!

To continue on Loud, Please's discussion about personal books and libraries, there is a wonderful article by Alberto Manguel in the New York Times of May 15. In it, he describes perfectly the feelings and meaning that our books bestow on our lives .

"The present one is a sort of multilayered autobiography, each book holding the moment in which I opened it for the first time. The scribbles on the margins, the occasional date on the flyleaf, the faded bus ticket marking a page for a reason today mysterious, all try to remind me of who I was then."