BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 07:14 PM

It is a little known fact that Atilla the Hun served as a librarian in the formative years of his late adolescence.

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Sep 07 - 08:42 AM

Wikipedia's list of "Well-known people who have been librarians."

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: Amos
Date: 07 Sep 07 - 11:04 AM

Eratosthenes of Cyrene (Greek EñáôïóèÝíçò; 276 BC - 194 BC) was a Greek mathematician, geographer and astronomer. His contemporaries nicknamed him "beta" (Greek for "number two") because he supposedly proved himself to be the second in the ancient Mediterranean region in many fields. He is noted for devising a system of latitude and longitude, and for being the first known to have calculated the circumference of the Earth. He also created a map of the world based on the available geographical knowledge of the era.

Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene (in modern-day Libya), but worked and died in Alexandria, capital of Ptolemaic Egypt. He never married. He was reputedly known for his haughty character.

Eratosthenes studied in Alexandria and claimed to have done so for some years in Athens. In 236 BC he was appointed by Ptolemy III Euergetes I as librarian of the Alexandrian library, succeeding the first librarian, Zenodotos, in that post. He made several important contributions to mathematics and science, and was a good friend to Archimedes. Around 255 BC he invented the armillary sphere, which was widely used until the invention of the orrery in the 18th century.

In 194 BC Eratosthenes became blind and a year later he supposedly starved himself to death.

He is credited by Cleomedes in On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies with having calculated the Earth's circumference around 240 BC, using knowledge of the angle of elevation of the Sun at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria and in the Elephantine Island near Syene (now Aswan, Egypt).

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Sep 07 - 12:28 PM

Fidel Castro considers these folks to be dangerous. In March 2003, his government arrested seventy-five members of various opposition movements, including independent librarians and journalists. The groups had been infiltrated by the "Agents of State Security." All those arrested were found guilty in May of that year and most were sentenced to twenty years or more. Two of the men who were arrested were Hector Palacious, a librarian and member of an umbrella group, Todos Unidos, who received a twenty-five year sentence and internationally known poet and journalist, Raul Rivero, sentenced to twenty years.

I found that info at the back of a novel I just finished by Barbara Parker called "Rage of Suspicion."

She also tells about her inspiration for the book: In 1998, a married couple, Ramon Colas and Berta Mexidor, who founded Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba (Independent Libraries of Cuba) were at a book fair, when they heard Castro say, "In Cuba there are no prohibited books, only those we do not have the money to buy." So, they took him at his word and started the Feliz Varela Library in their home, as well as supervised the opening of a dozen other home libraries within nine months.

In 1999, they were evicted from their home and had their books and personal papers taken from them amid much harassement and threats by the government. In 2001, the USA granted them political asylum. They and their children came here that year.

My grandpa wouldn't have thought much good of a government that might've taken his home lending library and evicted him for having it back in the 1890s!

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Sep 07 - 12:55 PM

Sounds kinda like the PATRIOT Act, Kat.

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Sep 07 - 01:06 PM

Yeah, it is a bit like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Wanted: Dangerous librarians
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Sep 07 - 09:12 PM

Headed in that direction, imo.