Warren Township Library Founder Arrested for Refusing to Testify

Zoia Horn in 2010

Librarian Zoia Horn (1918-2014) founded the first library in Warren Township, which started with a modest collection of 183 books at the township's Central School. She and other volunteers helped the library flourish and expand to the point where it had its own building.

After she left Warren Township, Horn gained notoriety in the early 1970s when she became the first U.S. librarian ever jailed for withholding evidence after she refused to testify in a trial. After leaving the township and the library she had nurtured for years, Horn became the Head of the Reference Department at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania.

While at Bucknell, she was first approached by the FBI in relation to a suspect. In 1972, she gained headlines when she was arrested for refusing to testify in a trial against Philip Berrigan. Berrigan, an anti-war activist who was serving in federal prison for burning draft files concerning the Vietnam War, was alleged to be plotting to blow up heating tunnels beneath Washington, D.C., and to kidnap Henry Kissinger, the national security adviser to President Richard Nixon.

Horn and another Bucknell library employee testified before a grand jury. During the trial, they were subpoenaed to testify for the prosecution, but Horn refused to testify at the trial on the grounds that her forced testimony would threaten intellectual and academic freedom. After she was released, she became an outspoken opponent of the Patriot Act, which allowed the FBI to obtain a warrant requiring a librarian to surrender records of a patron's borrowing or internet use. Horn has criticized the law on grounds that it does not require any showing that evidence of wrongdoing is likely to be found or that the target of its investigation is involved in a crime

Learn more about other fascinating people who helped shape the library during the Warren Township Library 70th Anniversary celebration from 1 pm to 4 pm on September 26. The event, sponsored by the Friends of Warren Township Library, will offer family-friendly activities including a scavenger hunt, button making and other crafts and there will be raffles for children, teens and adults.

1972 Newspaper Tribute to Zoia Horn