Re: WG: Bagdad Nationalbibliothek

[IFLA 2003 Berlin Sekretariat <ifla2003secr _at__ sbb.spk-berlin.de>]

Weitergeleitet aus ifla-l vom 14.4.2003 zur Information.
Barbara Schleihagen
--
WLIC/IFLA 2003 Generalsekretärin/Secretary General
WLIC/IFLA 2003 Berlin Sekretariat c/o Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Potsdamer Str. 33, D-10785 Berlin
Tel: +49-30-265588-52, Fax: +49-30-265588-53
http://www.ifla.org, http://www.ifla-deutschland.de

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Information on the looting and burning of Iraq's National Library and National
Archives, following the destruction of most of the
contents of the National Museum is available on the (Australian) ABC website at
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s831324.htm.

I am attending an emergency meeting, called by the Director General of UNESCO, to be
held in paris on Thursday 17th April 2003 to
discuss the best ways of responding to the desperate situation arising from the
looting and destruction of cultural property.

>From the New York Times:
[...] Among other buildings afire or still smoldering in eastern Baghdad today were
the city hall, the Agriculture Ministry and so
thoroughly burned that heat still radiated 50 paces from its front doors the National
Library. Not far from the National Museum of Iraq,
which was looted on Thursday and Friday with the loss of almost all of its store of
170,000 artifacts, the library was considered another
of the repositories of an Iraqi civilization dating back at least 7,000 years.

By tonight, virtually nothing was left of the library and its tens of thousands of
old manuscripts and books, and of archives like Iraqi
newspapers tracing the country's turbulent history from the era of Ottoman rule
through to Mr. Hussein. Reading rooms and the stacks
where the collections were stored were reduced to smoking vistas of blackened rubble.

Across the street, a lone American tank roared out of the monumental gates of the
Defense Ministry, untouched by the looters
presumably because they knew that the ministry, at least, would be under close guard
by American troops. Almost as much as the
civilian casualties from American bombs and tanks, the destruction of the museum and
the library has ignited passions against American
troops, for their failure to intervene. How far these passions offset the widespread
jubilation at the toppling of Mr. Hussein is impossible
to tell, in part because of the differing views within the population. [...]

New York Times on the web:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/14/international/worldspecial/14BAGH.html?pagewanted=2

We will post more information as it becomes avaialable.

Ross Shimmon
Secretary General


Bernhard Eversberg schrieb:

> Vielleicht sind das alles uebertriebene Horrormeldungen!
>
>
> Bernhard Eversberg
> Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329,
> D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany
> Tel.  +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX  -5836
> e-mail  B.Eversberg _at__ tu-bs.de