Ministry of Truth to Open Library School
by Heather O. Docks
In a move widely hailed as further proof of the benevolence of Big Brother, Oceania’s Ministry of Truth today opened its first Library School dedicated to the training of librarians to further the advancement of INGSOC. In a press release, the Ministry described this new profession as “essential to the Party.”
“Given their professional responsibility for acting as gatekeepers and controlling information,” said a Ministry spokesman, “we see the librarian as indispensable in the promotion of INGSOC by encouraging both Party members and the proles to ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears. The Ministry believes Librarians will be especially important to the work of the Fiction Department, in ensuring that only expurgated and purified novels are ever purchased for libraries.”
He added, “The surprising eagerness of some of these librarians to liaise with the Thought Police has been particularly valuable in ferreting out thoughtcrimes.”
The curriculum of the new school includes such subjects as collection unvelopment—or the non-purchase of books deemed harmful to the Party; memory hole automation to ensure efficient elimination of knowledge deemed to be misinformation as well as the preservation of only the most current professional thought; the use of Newspeak in metadata to render objectionable content completely undiscoverable by users, so as to protect them from thoughtcrimes; the indoctrination of children through literature designed to turn them against their parents; and advocacy-related topics such as the role of librarians in the Anti-Biological Sex League.
Incoming student Sandra Blake, 25, is excited about the new school. “Librarians are perfectly situated to disrupt and dismantle thoughtcrimes. By making sure that no such books are ever written, reviewed, purchased, catalogued or sought for by patrons, we can forward the principles of CEI, or Conformity, Equalness and INGSOC.”
In recognition of its new primacy in the Ministry, the Library School will play a special role in organizing the upcoming Hate Week, which will highlight the heresies, treacheries, and deviations of “abolished” authors, including Emmanuel Goldstein and J.K. Rowland.
In related news, the Ministry is also reportedly set to release the most recent edition of its Library of Oceania Subject Headings (LOSH) index terms, which include such notable changes as replacing the term Woman entirely with Non-man, with see also references to Menstruators, Uterus-havers and, of course, Man. 1
This piece is satire and any perceived similarity to individuals living or dead is purely coincidental.
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It's one thing to say that what's been going on in our profession is "Orwellian," but to see it put this way is quite another....
So as a librarian, I'm always interested in sources. The author of this post is Heather O. Docks. Who is that? I just looked at Heterodoxy in the Stacks' profile, and although I saw four or five names, I didn't see Heather O. Docks' name. Is Heather a librarian? If so, where? Or is Heather O. Docks someone's nom de plume?