Fw: Seeking YU telephone directories

["BIOst Library" <library _at__ biost.de>]

Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,
vielleicht kann hier jemand von Ihnen weiterhelfen?
Gruß
Susanne Oehlschläger



------- Forwarded Message Follows -------

Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:48:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: Andras Riedlmayer <riedlmay _at__ fas.harvard.edu>

Dear Colleagues,

       It is a rare occasion when the answer to a bibliographic query
has the potential to make a difference in the lives of tens of
thousands  of people. This is such an occasion and the reason I'm
posting this query  to this list. Please pass it on to potentially
interested colleagues and  to other library-related lists.
What we are urgently seeking is libraries or other institutions  that
have holdings telephone directories from the former Yugoslavia,
dating from 1969 to the present.  We are especially asking colleagues
in European libraries to check their collections to see if they have
any holdings.

These phonebooks are needed to help us complete a set of such
directories, for a project designed to assist refugees returning to
Kosovo who have been deprived of other forms of personal
identification.  Our    project is described in article in this
week's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education:  "Using Phone
Books, Scholars Build a Data Base for Resettling Kosovars," by Kelly
McCollum. Norman Ross Publishing Inc. ( http://www.nross.com ) has
undertaken to film these phonebooks.  The entries for Kosovo are
being scanned from the microfilms and will be turned into a
searchable  database, using OCR and other software.  Microfilming and
preserving a series of   telephone directories for all of the former
Yugoslavia will also assist researchers in tracking demographic
changes in a region that has been radically transformed by war and
"ethnic cleansing."

         We have located about 20 vols. of directories in North
American collections, but need more to complete our series.  Our
hope is that libraries we have not contacted so far (esp. in  Europe)
will have holdings that can help us to fill crucial gaps. Below is a
list of phone books we have identified that we do not yet have for
this project:
* 1970-1978 for all republics of the former Yugoslavia
* 1981-1982 for all republics of the former Yugoslavia
* 1985-1986 for Macedonia and Montenegro only
* 1987-1988 for all republics of the former Yugoslavia
* 1989-1990 for all the republics except Bosnia
* 1991+     for all republics of the former Yugoslavia

If you know of the location of any of the above telephone
directories,  please notify, as soon as possible:

Norman Ross Publishing Inc.
330 West 58th Street
New York, NY 10019  USA
tel: 1-212-765-8200 / fax: 1-212-765-2393
e-mail <inquiry _at__ nross.com>

The resulting database will be of use not only in facilitating
returns of refugees who currently hold only provisional
identification documents issued by UNHCR, but may also assist in the
process of rebuilding a functioning civil society in Kosovo (in
matters such as settling the inevitable disputes about property and
inheritance, and drawing up electoral rolls for the first postwar
elections).

As you are no doubt aware, the recent crisis in the Balkans has
resulted in the exile of as many as a million people driven from
their homes in Kosovo. Before being pushed across the border most
refugees were systematically deprived of their identity documents.

Within Kosovo, there was also widespread destruction of archives and
registry offices that held the vital statistics and property records
and other documentation of the people who had been expelled. (see the
Society of American Archivists resolution on archive destruction in
Kosovo on the SAA website).

Hundreds of passports and other documents confiscated by Serbian
forces from expelled Kosovar Albanians were discovered last week by
NATO troops, who found them stuffed into trash bags piled on a
rubbish tip.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/061499kosovo-graves.1.jpg.html

British intelligence has promised to turn over the found documents to
UNHCR for return to the owners, if they can be located.  However,
tens of thousands of people still have no documents of any kind other
than those issued by refugee agencies.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata explains
the rationale behind this destruction of records in an article
published last week in the International Herald Tribune (14 June
1999)

http://www.unhcr.ch/news/pr/ht990614.htm

In the past two months the Yugoslav authorities have made a well-
organized effort to erase the identity, and thus the residency and
return rights, of Yugoslavia's ethnic Albanian citizens.

And in recent days some Yugoslav officials have insisted that they be
given a say in deciding who is allowed to return. The international
administrators in Kosovo must ensure that those who were responsible
for the mass expulsions are not allowed to reap the harvest of the
inhumane policy of expulsion by being able to block ''undesirable''
refugees from returning.

The Yugoslav authorities have made their position chillingly clear:

The Serb position is that any Albanian with documents, who can prove
that he or she is a citizen of Kosovo, can return, the diplomat said.
He noted, however, that Serb officials carefully destroyed the
documents of many refugees as they left Kosovo.

Asked about a demographic remaking of Kosovo, Goran Matic, a Serb
cabinet minister, denied it. "We would like all the Albanians to come
back," he said, "all those who can prove that they were citizens of
Yugoslavia." (New York Times, April 25, 1999)

Our hope is that UN High Commissioner Ogata's warning will be heeded
by the international authorities in Kosovo, and that refugees will
face no bureaucratic obstacles as they exercise their right of
return.

We also hope that this project will make a real contribution to the
rebuilding of communities and people's lives in Kosovo.  By tracking
down these publications, and by preserving and making available the
information they contain, we will have put our skills as librarians
to use in the service of that goal.

Please feel free to contact me, or Norman Ross Inc.
<norman _at__ nross.com> if you have any questions or need further
information.

Andras J. Riedlmayer
Fine Arts Library
Harvard University
<riedlmay _at__ fas.harvard.edu>
tel. 617-495-3372 / fax 1-617-496-4889

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