Transcript Overview • Why Libraries are targets • Case studies • What can be done to protect libraries before conflict, and help them after.

Overview
• Why Libraries are targets
• Case studies
• What can be done to protect
libraries before conflict, and help
them after
Why libraries are targets
• Libraries as deliverers of democratic
ideals
• Library as purveyor of neutral ideas…
•
…ideally
• Evidence of ownership, of existence,
of legal status
World War Two
• Both deliberate and accidental
destruction of collections
• Nazi destruction of “impure” books
• Destruction in air raids
• Collections lost after transfer for
safekeeping
• Burning or looting of books by
retreating forces
WW2 by the numbers
• Frankfurt University Library
– 1939 stocks: 1.2 million
– War losses: 600,000
• Hamburg Provincial Library
– 1939 stocks: 707,000
– War losses: 710,000
• Wurzburg University Library
– 1939 stocks: 450,000
– War losses: 370,000
WW2 by the numbers
• England – war damage harder to estimate
• Losses worse in London
– 260,000 from general library of the British
Museum
– 25,000 from Guildhall Library
• But outside London also hit
– 175,000 from Liverpool branches
– 75,000 from the Plymouth Central Library
Krakow
Latvia
Tehran
Sierra Leone
Croatia
Bosnia
• “…they don’t like Christian civilization in
their city. They never liked that library
building. It is from the Austro-Hungarian
times. It is a Christian building. They took
out all the Muslim books, left the Christian
books inside, and burned it down.”
(Radovan Karadzik, quoted in Maas, 1996)
Afganistan
Baghdad
"We want to change people's orientation
through our books. Otherwise there is
no alternative but mosques. I would
always say invest in secular education,
because religious extremism is a
cultural phenomenon - it is not wholly
an armed phenomenon. We need to
prove to people that there is an
alternative."
Saad Eskander, interviewed in
The Guardian, June 2008
Iraq Memory Foundation
• http://www.iraqmemory.org/EN/
What can be done?
• Laws and declarations protecting libraries
and books
– Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property
– IFLA, Glasgow Declaration
– UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity
– OSCE Initiative
• Digitization Initiatives
http://www.wdl.org/en/
What can be done?
• Post-conflict reconstruction efforts
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Book Aid International, The Book Trust
UNESCO, IFLA
International Foundation for Science
Soros Foundation (Open Society Initiative)
Middle East Librarian Committee, Middle East
Librarians’ Association
– Federation of Canadian Municipalities
[email protected]
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