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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Harvard to train Iraqi librarians |
| 2004-03-08 |
| Edited for brevity. In an effort to restore order to Iraqâs war-torn libraries, Harvard will participate in an initiative to train Iraqi librarians to modernize their holdings and their cataloguing methods, according to an announcement Thursday. With a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Harvard University Library (HUL) will partner with the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science in an attempt to reverse the effects of a decade of war and economic sanctions, as well as looting that accompanied the recent regime change. Representatives from Simmons and HUL will meet with Iraqi librarians this May in Amman, Jordan to discuss specific plans for program. Over the course of the next two years, Iraqi librarians will be trained in new methods of preservation, collection development, management and online information systems. According to Ahmed al-Rahim, Harvardâs preceptor in Arabic, tight restrictions on the availability of books and scholarly journals imposed on Iraq during Saddam Husseinâs 25-year regime, especially since the last Gulf War, prevented Iraqi academics from keeping up with developments in their fields. âOne thing [that has been] discussed after the fall of Baghdad was that there was a lot of money that was taken from the Oil For Food programâmoney that Saddam and his cronies pocketed,â he said. âThat impacted the education system and libraries as well. There was no money for books and academic journals.â Omar al-Dewachi, an Iraqi medical school graduate who is now pursuing a doctorate in anthropology at Harvard, said academic resources in Iraq had stagnated because of sanctions and censorship in Saddam Husseinâs regime. âEverything in the libraries did not go beyond 1988,â said al-Dewachi, who fled from Iraq to Lebanon in 1998. âOur textbooks were very, very old. The library was not a place where one could do that much. I used it maybe twice.â |
| Posted by:Dar |
| #5 Believe me, you don't want Harvard involved in anything even remotely important to a civilization. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-3-8 11:01:02 PM |
| #4 LOL Carl. What I hate is seeing all the shell deafened librarians unable to the loud buzz in the reading room. SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-3-8 5:16:35 PM |
| #3 "In an effort to restore order to Iraqâs war-torn libraries..." Yes, I am sure the insides of the libraries were a hellish scene of war's horrors: misfiled books. magazines with covers missing. surly blue-haired librarians with 1000-yard stares. books with pencil underlining every other sentence done by some freshman wanker back in 1987. the horror ! Wait, this article is from Scrappleface, right ? Right ? C'mon, quit pulling my leg ! |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H 2004-3-8 12:30:21 PM |
| #2 Won't have to worry about 600-699. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-3-8 12:12:13 PM |
| #1 "AAAAAugh! The infidel's evil Dewey Decimal system makes my BRAIN explode!" |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-3-8 11:39:00 AM |