So when I spotted the leather-bound books in a State House hallway Dumpster, I climbed in and retrieved them. [More]
Who would throw them out but a vandal?
I had occasion to do the same. I was working for a defense electronics firm that had been bought out by a larger company. We were closing down our facilities in preparation of being absorbed. I was assigned the task of disposing of the technical library, which the new owner did not want to spend any money transporting and providing space for.
I tried my best to find homes. I called libraries and universities and offered them free pickings. Most were uninterested.
We're talking R&D history here from a company that pioneered satellite navigation and communications, spread spectrum and GPS. Our president had been instrumental in the development of transistors, integrated circuits... Stuff beyond my ken, being but a poor policies and procedures wonk and not a Martian--I mean, did you know there even
was a Molodensky formula to deal with ionospheric refraction scale errors?
The bottom line: I had no choice but to throw much out. And because I did not even understand much of what I was destroying, I felt guilty, deeply ashamed, like a stupid Eloi allowing the knowledge of the ages to crumble into dust, or worse, one of the torchers at Alexandria...
When it comes to freedom, great men have bequeathed us knowledge they worked long and hard to develop and validate. We have a duty to understand what they did, to preserve it and build on it.
Because you can never count on that being in the interests of those who would consider themselves the new owners.
