LibrarianActivist.org

Friends and colleagues,

I have just received the grave and deeply dispiriting news from Dr.
Saad Eskander that he has closed the Iraq National Library and
Archive for the time being as of last Tuesday. On 15 November, he
informed me that his institution had been bombed thrice in three
weeks, and subjected to sniper fire, including directly into his own
office. Another young librarian was recently murdered, and the
building had been shelled several times in the few days previous to
the closing (by which I assume he meant mortar fire).

Dr. Eskander has been a model of progressive action, has increased
his staff substantially, and has striven very hard to gain them
training on several fronts, and otherwise restore functioning to an
institution that was twice set on fire during the initial period of
American occupation. Prompted by a question from me concerning how
he was managing to keep such a large staff coming to work under such
perilous circumstances, he informed me last spring that he was
dedicating 30% of his budget to bussing them all back and forth each
day, although three of his drivers had been murdered in the process.
However necessary, this was financially untenable as a long-term
accommodation to the exigencies of the times. As we all know, the
situation has only grown worse since then, and the repeated direct
attacks on his institution made it a place he could no longer ask his
staff to serve. The forces of intolerance are thriving, and those
institutions and persons representing a progressive and hopeful
future for Iraq are under assault and in retreat.

Yours truly,
Jeff