Giddy in the newfound confidence that lightning would not smite me, I strode into the downtown Milwaukee public library and opened the card catalogue to atheism . There were listed several books by Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Half a dozen Truth Seeker titles from the thirties and forties. My freethought odyssey was underway. I mention this story because last week, I heard that an Ingersoll collector had purchased the Milwaukee Public Library's Dresden Edition.
Freethought classics have much to tell today's secular humanists.
So does the rich humanist literature of the post-World War II era. Some worry that it, too, is passing from everyday consciousness on its way to being forgotten. Despite the untimely demise of Gordon Stein, the Center for Inquiry's director of libraries, our determination to build the world's finest humanist and freethought collection continues unabated. We are already entering our entire catalogue on OCLC, the world's largest interlibrary database. Soon after that it will be directly accessible over the Internet.