Cultural commentator, historian, librarian and author, Daniel Boorstin died yesterday, story here from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution .
Although he was opposed at the time of his nomination by both the Congressional Black Caucus (for speaking against affirmative action) and by the ALA (for not being a credentialed librarian), he served during the Ford Administration as Librarian of Congress.
Author of numerous scholarly and socially relevant books, his most famous was perhaps “The Image” (1962), in which he is quoted as saying “the combination of mass media and corporate power had transformed the “language of ideals” into the “language of images.” News had become dominated by public relations, by “pseudo-events” staged for the sake of being reported. Our heroes were celebrities, people famous for being famous.”
There has only been one credentialed librarian…
As even LC recognizes, Boorstin’s predecessor L. Quincy Mumford was the first (and so far only) Librarian of Congres to graduate from library school. Mumford served as director of the Cleveland Public Library, which claims to be today the third largest research public library in the United States, before going to LC.