ABSTRACT
The history of public librarianship is largely devoted to documenting its development in Western societies. In the literature of library history, democracy and its values are the predominant lenses used for analysing the transformations of libraries over time. This chapter presents a glimpse into public librarianship within a totalitarian state. It looks at the power struggle that took place between authorities and public libraries in the context of the communist ‘cultural revolution’ of the communist regime in Romania. Studies of the history of public libraries and librarianship in the Eastern Bloc are rare, although there are notable exceptions. While literature exists dedicated to libraries in the so-called developing countries, few studies focus on the characteristics of national library systems in non-democratic states. The struggle of the library professional in a totalitarian state to gain some control over the implementation of the public library’s mission and to manage access to information and knowledge is largely unknown.
