Of course, we're immediately going to hear from those that were dismissing the damage as unimportant or not the responsibility of the invading forces, that this proves all the outrage over the looting was "wrong". Let's take this moment to note that the looting and burning happened, and that what survives, survives not because Rumsfeld and Bush cared in the slightest about what happened to anything but the oil in Iraq, but because the librarians and the imams--career civil servants and clergy--cared, took responsibility, and took risks.

Once the dust settled, it has been discovered that the looters were not the culprits who stole Iraq's historical treasures. The stolen items were part of an 'inside job' carried out by employees of the museums and libraries themselves. Now that it looks like the vast majority of the items have been recovered, we can only hope that any damage done was minimal.

Related to this topic, it looks like the new head guy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer has issued orders authorizing coalition forces to shoot looters on sight.

This guy could be a future mayor of Chicago!

On another topic, I also heard that they may have struck oil under the unmarked grave filled with thousands of bodies.

I'd been trying to console myself with the thought that Trinity College and the Book of Kells would be both defended by a wall of bodies and in practise pretty well fortified against such looting - campus security gets fairly well tested at the Trinity Ball each year, in 1992 someone rammed the front gate with a car to no discernible effect [ on the gate ]. Slender comfort, but still some.

No, wait. I don't want to hear from them at all, ever again.

I guess, for me, the glass is three-quarters empty, only a quarter full. I'm grateful for that quarter, though, infinitely grateful.

Deborah

Has the shelf holding the Times Literary Supplement bound volumes collapsed yet? I always felt like I was taking my life into my hands when I took down one of those books. The shelf was higher than my head, and sagged badly in spite of being made of steel. When I'd take down a book, the rest of the volumes and their shelf would bounce gently up and down as the weight redistributed itself.

The children's literature section was very weird. Its floor was at a different level from any of the other floors, and its ceiling was at most seven feet high, maybe less. And dark, my god, it was dark. Most of Butler's dimly lit, but the combination of its low ceiling, high shelves, and seldom-replaced lightbulbs meant that areas of the children's literature section could literally be dark. You learned to steal a working bulb from one of the overhead fixtures and carry it around with you, screwing it into the fixture nearest where you needed to do your research.

Not a week has passed since I lost my access to Butler that I haven't wished I had it back.

Yup. Alumni Reading Cards. Wonderful things.

Butler's the better library, but at Bobst the books were far less likely to have been checked out.

I was crying when I read that article. God bless the people who realized what had to be done, and did it.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/explo/giantmicrobes.html

Dunno if these are the initial ones referenced -- in the crummy photo, they look more like vat-dyed hamsters with advanced-stage Walterkeanemia than what I think of as photomicrographed virii.

Hmm. An acrylic-crystal T4 would be neat, as would a plush one (with a little pocket in the body containing a nucleic-acid bead string). It probably ought to have sharp chrome legs, but it wouldn't be safe to play with then.

Losing 10% of the collection is still an inexcusable tragedy, but so much less so than losing 100%

I'm not even worried about the Rumsfeldies going "See?" because it will sound as false and hollow as did their first words on the subject, and the embarrassing fact is that the books were saved by something other than the "Army of Liberation" or whatever they're calling it this week.

That five hundred year old book of folklore no one there can read. I'm wondering what's in it....

It's wonderful news that what was preserved has been preserved and that when the US soldiers couldn't be bothered [and it turns out that according to course material taught at the US Military Academy, there IS an obligation incumbent on US troops to protect hospitals, libraries, etc. against looting by occupying armies....] the Iraqis organized themselves to remove as many items as possible to safekeeping, but that doesn't change that the US stood by and failed to -protect-, and that -other- facilities were looted with the US and British evincing no interest in deterring it -- they sort of had that attitude "boys will be boys" that infuriated me when I was a grade schooler being told to shut up that discrimination was the correct way of the world and being victimized was a so what....

http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=online/news/iraq3

has daily updates (bottom of the webpage) discussing "TAKING STOCK IN BAGHDAD" regarding the situation of museum [former] holdings and such.

http://www.ifla.org/VI/4/admin/iraq0205.htm had the status of libraries in Iraq as of Apr 29

"Central Library of the University of Baghdad (on 2 sites): about 600K printed books, serials, maps, etc. - both sites burnt"

"Library of Bayt al-Hikma: centre for research in the social sciences, law, economics and strategic studies very active in the 1980s 96 situated in the same area as the National Library 96 believed to be completely destroyed"

"Central Library of the University of Mosul: about 900K printed books, serials, etc. 96 looted and burnt

"Library of the Mosul Museum: since the Museum was bombed and looted, its library presumably also damaged"

-j