[Sigiii-l] LIBRARIES IN IRAQ

[Ian Johnson (absimj)]

The following message picked up from another list may be of some interest.
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 18:55:26 +0100 From: Geoffrey Roper <gjr2 at cam.ac.uk <mailto:gjr2 at cam.ac.uk>> To: "LIS-MIDDLE-EAST at JISCMAIL.AC.UK 
We now have confirmation that the largest Iraqi MSS collection, in what was known as the Saddam Manuscripts Library in Baghdad, is safe. It contains more than 40,000 Arabic, Turkish, Persian & Kurdish MSS, including the collections formerly in the Iraq Museum as well as many other private and mosque collections. All of them were packed and transferred to safekeeping last winter, in anticipation of hostilities. We know this from two highly authoritative sources:- 1. The Director of the Library, Usama Nasir al-Naqshabandi, in a satellite phone conversation with a colleague in the Orient-Institut, Beirut (many thanks to Wolf-Dieter Lemke for this information). 
2. The Director of Research at the Iraq Museum, Donny George, at a press conference in the British Museum in London yesterday, which I attended. This was in response to a direct question about the Saddam MSS Library, for which the Iraq Museum is still ultimately responsible. At the same time, there have been press reports that significant parts of the collections in the National Library and archives were also saved from the fire and looting. Early newspapers and Ottoman cadastral registers are reported to have been transferred to safe storage in March. But we do not know the extent of the losses to the main printed book collections. 
Geoffrey Roper Islamic Bibliography Unit Cambridge University Library