Promoting a Shared Experience

摘要

Do libraries create communities, or divide them? That may seem an odd question to ask, but none other than the librarian of Congress, James Billington, raised it (albeit obliquely) in a presentation at Georgetown University in 2005. Billington was speaking to his fellow members of the U.S. National Commission to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The United States helped establish UNESCO in 1945, but parted ways with the organization in 1984 because of concerns that its goals were conflictingwith U.S. foreign policy. When the United States rejoined UNESCO in 2003, Billington was appointed a senior observer and advisor to the U.S. Mission.