In this third part of our quest for the librarians´ support for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks Mikael Böök takes a look at what that support would mean in practice. In line with the distinction he made in part two between the man and the thing, he will here focus on the demand to preserve the WikiLeaks in the libraries, for the public and for posterity.
By Mikael Böök, Isnäs, Finland
You should not just say it, you should do it too. This is how I perceive Michael Gorman`s remarks (see his comment on the previous two parts of this posting). And I fully agree!
«The Wikileaks trove is present and should be preserved, just as every part of the human record, good bad or indifferent, should be preserved. How to do that?», Gorman asks.
On my personal bookshelf I have a copy of Michael Gorman`s book Our Enduring Values, published back in the year 2000. I have also procured myself with the revised edition, from the year 2015. When I now re-read passages from these books, I cannot but agree with many of his “traditional” views. In particular, with the view that the “traditional” library must survive and will survive (like Gorman, I prefer to put the word “traditional” within quotation marks, because, like him, I don’t want to believe that the libraries will disappear and be replaced by something else).
Now, let’s do a rapid overview of the document collections at WikiLeaks.org.
The sample of items that are currently featuring on its front page gives a first impression. Here is a listing with snippets from the press releases:
Forfattaren, den tidlegare kulturredaktøren og svenske PEN-leiaren 
