Aid for Iraq
2003-2004

Reconstruction of Iraq - British Library offer of assistance

The British Library has identified two principal means through which it might provide a contribution to the reconstruction of Iraqi libraries and archives under the heading "reconstruction of the collections". These are:

(i) Conservation training

The British Library can offer some assistance with conservation training for Iraqi personnel, as the need becomes clearer in the future. This could take the form of placements and/or internships within the Conservation Department of the British Library, to help with the development of book and paper conservation skills appropriate to the care of the Iraqi collections.

Ahead of any practical conservation training, the BL could also offer assistance in Preservation Management, especially in assisting with priority setting and planning, given the scale and size of the conservation problem.

(ii) Production of collection item surrogates

The British Library would be willing to particpate in an internationally co-ordinated and funded programme to produce surrogate copies of cultural heritage items of significance held in the BL's collections as a contribution to the reconstruction of the collections of Iraqi libraries and archives.

British Library
September 2003

Books required by University Libraries in Iraq

While almost all university libraries south of Iraqi Kurdistan were looted and/or burned, even the ones left untouched have little in them. In Kurdistan, there are hardly any books after 1980. It is the same for journals. The law library in Tikrit has a few hundred law students and 80 books in its whole library - and most of these are Xerox copies of Xerox copies stitched together. The will accept books in every field and specialty.

That said, where they think the need is greatest is in the sciences and medicine - including nursing, pharmacy and veterinary medicine and science. These books, also, can and should be in English. All agriculture related material is also vitally necessary.

While they will gladly accept all texts and back copies of journals, they would lean toward the sciences and engineering and computer science over the political science texts which predominate on your list. Political science (hard as it might be to believe) is not widely taught.

Still, I need to emphasize that the need is across all fields, though the books that would be most useful in English are in the sciences, medicine, English literature and language, agricultural sciences, and engineering simply because those fields are all taught in English.

John Agresto, Senior Adviser
Higher Education
CPA, Iraq
E-mail: agrestoj@orha.centcom.mil

March 2004