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TECHNOLOGY A23
Monday 10 August 2015
Facing Islamic State threat, Iraq digitizes national library
VIVIAN SALAMA This Tuesday, July 28, 2015 photo shows restored books and documents at the Baghdad National the water pipes and water
Associated Press Library in Iraq. leaked onto these impor-
BAGHDAD (AP) — The tant cultural materials.”
dimly lit, dust-caked stacks Associated Press Around 400,000 pages of
of the Baghdad National documents — some dating
Library hide a treasure of crosurgery, and the type versible,” she added. Ottoman records. Archives back to the Ottoman peri-
the ages: crinkled, yellow- of damage to each docu- Technicians sterilize manu- from 1977 to 2003 burned od — and 4,000 rare books
ing papers holding the true ment is a story — and a scripts and documents for to ashes. Earlier archives were damaged when the
stories of sultans and kings; puzzle — on its own. Some 48 hours, washing them of from 1920 to 1977, includ- pipes broke. They includ-
imperialists and socialists; manuscripts are torn from dust and other impurities ing sensitive Interior Minis- ed the library’s precious
occupation and liberation; overuse and aging; oth- that accumulated over try documents, had been Hebrew archives, most of
war and peace. ers are burned or stained time. Then, they go page stored in rice bags and sur- which later were moved to
These are the original from attack or sabotage. by page using Japanese vived the blaze. Washington.
chronicles of Iraq’s rich And then there are some tissue, specialized paper During the invasion of Iraq, A team of experts from the
and tumultuous history — that were completely fossil- for book conservation and “we had an alternative Library of Congress visited
and now librarians and ized over time — the com- restoration, to either fill in site for the most important Baghdad to help assess
academics in Baghdad bined result of moisture torn edges or layer the books and documents at the damage and recom-
are working feverishly to and scorching tempera- more-delicate documents the Department of Tour- mended building a new
preserve what’s left after tures — looking instead like with a sheer coating to ism,” said Jamal Abdel-Ma- national library. More than
thousands of documents large rocks dug up from make them more durable. jeed Abdulkareem, acting a decade later, a state-of-
were lost or damaged at the earth. The Baghdad National Li- director of Baghdad librar- the-art, 45,000-square-me-
the height of the U.S.-led “Those are the most diffi- brary, established by the ies and archives. “Then ter (484,380-square-foot)
invasion. cult books to restore,” said British in 1920 on donations books and the important replacement by London-
As Islamic State militants Fatma Khudair, the senior and first overseen by a documents were exposed based AMBS Architects is
set out to destroy Iraq’s his- employee in the restora- Catholic priest, has weath- to water because the scheduled to open next
tory and culture, including tion department. “We ap- ered violent upheaval American tanks destroyed year.Until then, the Bagh-
irreplaceable books and ply steam using a special- before. At the start of the dad National Library is
manuscripts kept in the ized tool to try to loosen 2003 U.S.-led occupation, looking to help those in
militant-held city of Mo- and separate the pages. when chaos gripped the conflict-ridden areas en-
sul, a major preservation “Sometimes, we are able capital, arsonists set fire to joy and appreciate Iraqi
and digitization project is to save those books and the library, destroying 25 culture. Library officials say
underway in the capital then apply other restora- percent of its books and that sharing Iraqi art and
to safeguard a millennium tion techniques, but with some 60 percent of its ar- literature is key to com-
worth of history. others, the damage is irre- chives, including priceless batting terrorism. In recent
In darkrooms in the library’s months, the library do-
back offices, employees nated some 2,500 books
use specialized lighting to libraries in Iraq’s Diyala
to photograph some of province after Iraqi forces
the most-precious manu- recaptured towns there
scripts. Mazin Ibrahim Is- from Islamic State militants.
mail, the head of the mi- The militants “want history
crofilm department, said to reflect their own views
they’re testing the process instead of the way it actu-
with documents from the ally happened,” Abdulka-
Interior Ministry under Iraq’s reem said. “So when an
last monarch, Faisal II, who area is liberated, we send
ruled from 1939 to 1958. them books to replenish
“Once restoration for some whatever was stolen or de-
of the older documents stroyed, but also, so that
from the Ottoman era, 200 Iraqis in this area have ac-
to 250 years ago, is com- cess to these materials so
pleted, we will begin to they can always feel proud
photograph those onto mi- of their rich history.”q
crofilm,” Ismail said. He said
the digital archives, which
will not be made available
immediately to the pub-
lic, is more to ensure their
contents survive any future
threat. The restoration pro-
cess is nothing short of mi-
