From an article in La Presse this week, I learned that a French organisation, Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (BSF), has been to Haiti to evaluate the extent of the damage to libraries in and around Port-au-Prince. They’ve written a 42 page report (PDF) entitled “Rapport de la mission de sauvegarde des archives et des collections patrimoniales haïtiennes et d’évaluation des besoins en termes de reconstruction” (Report on the mission to rescue the archives and Haitian heritage collections and to evaluate the reconstruction needs).
The report states that in the metropolitan zone, over 80% of public schools and 90% of private schools have collapsed. Thankfully, the National Library is still standing, with only minimal damage. Many university libraries were affected, but apparently some of the material was removed from the rubble. (there was another article in La Presse a few weeks ago about this).
They suggest some courses of action for the short, medium, and long term. For example, for the short term, BSF suggests creating mobile libraries that would travel from camp to camp which would help with schooling and to counter delinquency. They also suggest donating books and other materials for libraries in other cities, where many people have fled to.
For universities, they suggest creating a central location where 1) they could provide access to electronic resources, in partnership with French universities and 2) taking 6 months to buy (with the help of Haitien librarians from the Haiti State University) a whole new collection (that would be housed in the outskirts of Paris) and create a catalogue. Once a building is built in Port-au-Prince, the whole collection would be moved and ready to use.
A very inspiring document!