The
British Library has been posting the diary blog of Dr Saad Eskander,
the Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA) Archive
and a former British Library reader pass-holder, here on our website
since November 2006.
Dr Eskander's blog provides a vivid and powerful account of the
challenges facing professional colleagues in the INLA which has
drawn global attention to the seriousness of the situation under
which all those seeking to protect Iraq's cultural heritage are
operating.
Dr Eskander has now decided that his diary entry for July 2007
will be the final entry. He gives his reasons in the final paragraph
of the entry. The British Library fully respects and supports Dr
Eskander's decision. We are grateful for the interest and the comments
we have received from readers of the diary entries over the last
9 months.
We shall continue to work with, and to offer professional support
to, the Iraq National Library and Archive. And we hope to be able
to provide periodic news updates on progress towards the reconstruction
of the INLA on these pages going forward.
The Library's purpose in posting the blog is, first, to express
professional solidarity with colleagues in our sister institution.
Writing to Dr Eskander in December 2006, Lynne Brindley sent the
following message of support:
'I am not sure that anyone here can possibly appreciate just how
perilous and intolerable a situation you and your colleagues were
operating under in the interest of keeping the National Library
and Archive open. The thoughts and prayers of everyone here at the
British Library go out to you and all your colleagues at this very
difficult time. Your safety must be absolutely paramount. We hope
that the situation will soon improve and that you will be able to
continue your important mission. I hope this message of support
from the British Library might in some way sustain you during these
dark times.'
Second, it has provided a platform for obtaining further public
and professional support for the INLA. The blog has been highly
successful in this regard.
Dr Eskander named Archivist of the Year 2007
Dr Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive
(INLA), has been given the prestigious Archivist of the Year Award
by New York's Scone Foundation at a ceremony at Columbia University
in New York on 12 November. More...
Read Dr Eskander's Special report: March 2008
How have things been since he ended his online diary? Find
out
Read Dr Eskander's diary from November 2006 to July 2007
here:
Read some of the comments we have
received
Support
the INLA by joining the Facebook group
Please note you will need to be registered with, and logged into,
Facebook first.
Visit the website
of the INLA
Send us your comments about the
diary
British Library support for reconstruction of the Iraq
National Library and Archive
When the Saddam regime was toppled in 2003, the Iraq National Library
and Archive in Baghdad was set alight and looted. Much damage was
done, in particular to the library's archive collections. According
to Dr Eskander, the full extent of the INLA's losses is as follows:
archival materials - 60% lost; rare books - 95% lost; manuscripts
- 25% lost. In 2005 Dr Eskander requested some specific assistance
from us for rebuilding his collections. With monetary assistance
from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, we were able to help by
providing microfilm copies of rare books and also microfiche copies
of India Office records relating to the administration of Iraq 1914-1921.
Later in the same year, Chief Executive Lynne Brindley hosted a
dinner for Dr Eskander, attended by a number of prominent librarians
from the public library and university library sector.
In 2007 the British Library led an appeal among UK university
libraries for undergraduate and postgraduate English texts in the
social sciences, texts identified as being vital for the reconstruction
of the collection of the INLA by its Director, Dr Saad Eskander.
At the end of June we delivered a consignment of 300 academic textbooks
donated by the university libraries and UK publishers worth $30,000
dollars to the Iraq National Library and Archive (INLA) in Baghdad.
Some measure of the importance of the donation is that the INLA's
book budget this year is US$7,000.
