The Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge, from Ancient Assyria to the Digital Age

This is a seminar course and enrollment will be capped at around 25 students.

Instructor: Richard Ovenden

This course will examine the history of deliberate destruction of organised bodies of knowledge, particularly libraries and archives, over the past 3,000 years. The course will look at the motivations for destroying knowledge as well, and will consider how libraries and archives have responded through evolving techniques and approaches for preservation. The course will consider a series of case studies from across the globe over a 3,000 year time span.

Course Materials:
Students should purchase this book before the first day of class:

• Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge (Purchase)

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 made 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).

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