Though it sounds like a cross between Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack and an e-reader by Apple, the Biblomac was a short lived newspaper for the book world. It debuted in New York in August of 1940 and lasted all of 3 issues.
Stephen Ferguson at Princeton University’s Rare Book and Special Collection blog unearthed a copy of the premier issue and shares an excerpt of the lead editorial written by one of the publishers, Herbert Burstein.
For the most part, Poor Richard’s Biblomac reflects an idea we have – an idea that anyone whose stock-in-trade is books – the librarian, the bookseller, the publisher—has a function in democratic society that means something more than delivering books from stack to reader. And, today, when the propaganda of self-acclaimed patriots and pundits is peddled among more and more customers so that democracy is in increasing danger of finding itself saved by totalitarians, when labeling individuals and groups with the neologism “fifth column” is becoming a national pastime and when the word and the book is suspect, there is a need for a publication which will discuss the issues which confront the bookman in his capacity as citizen, discuss his function and urge its exercize. Poor Richard’s Biblomac may not be that publication but we will try.
Because we believe that the book, as much as the bullet, is ammunition for the democratic state—that the needs of our American democracy are best served by more, and not less, democracy, we will expose and oppose trends and movements designed to cripple libraries and hamper book production and reading. We have made a start, we think by devoting part of this issue to the question: shall libraries censor reading?
We have no illusion that we shall turn tides or, more modestly, change attitudes. We are content if, from time to time, we shall be able to create interest and discussion in vital problems, ruffle the calm waters of the status quo and, if necessary, make nuisances of ourselves about things we think matter. Herbert Burstein.
Here we are 68 years later and much of what Burstein says still resonates. His approach should still serve as a rallying cry to all who work within the book universe and to all who believe that “the book, as much as the bullet, is ammunition for the democratic state.”
I can’t wait until the entire issue is digitized.