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WHAT DO WE LOSE WHENWE LOSE A LIBRARY?

Welcome!

To commemorate the centenary of the destruction of the Library in 1914, the Goethe-Institut Brüssel, the British Council Brussels and the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) are organising a three day international conference on the challenging topic: What do we lose when we lose a library?

The burning or destruction of books – and material heritage – is a symbol of so much more. What does a community lose, what does a city or country lose, when a library is turned to ashes? Examples come from all times and places. We can think for example of the destruction of a library in Alexandria in the far past, the demolition of a library of the Jesuits in China, the library fires in Leuven in 1914 and in 1940, the destruction of manuscripts in Chartres and Warsaw during the Second World War and the ruined libraries in Croatia and Sarajevo at the end of the 20th Century. The threat to the library in Timbuktu in 2012 and the very recent destruction of books and archives in Mosul, Aleppo and Sanaa complete this sad list. The worldwide protection of libraries will therefore stay one of the biggest challenges for the conservation and spread of knowledge.

For three days, more than thirty speakers from a range of countries will closely look into the historical facts, the methods and strategies on how threatened book collections can be protected. What are the traumas from the past? What can we learn from these for the future? How can libraries strengthen their position? How can they protect their collections? In addition, the conference will also explore the digital challenge for libraries.

The Conference Board

Mel Collier, KU Leuven

Hilde Van Kiel, KU Leuven

Garrelt Verhoeven, KU Leuven

Lieve Watteeuw, Chair, KU Leuven

Pierre Delsaerdt, University of Antwerp

Sonja Griegoschewki, Goethe-Institut Brüssel

Andrew Murray, British Council

Charles-Henri Nyns, UC Louvain

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Nie wieder Krieg, plus jamais de livres brûlés! Cela ressemble malheureusement à un cridans le vide pour qui suit l'actualité ... En tant qu'institution allemande, le Goethe-Institutse doit de faire un travail de mémoire sur les guerres mondiales. Pour en tirer desleçons ... Un événement autour de la destruction criminelle de la bibliothèqueuniversitaire de Louvain semblait de ce fait incontournable dans le cadre du centenairede la Grande Guerre. Presque tous les jours, l'héritage culturel est menacé ou détruitquelque part dans le monde. En tant qu'institut culturel, nous voulons réellement réagir,nous tourner vers l'avenir et mettre à profit notre know how. Durant la conférence "Whatdo we lose when we lose a library?" que nous organisons avec la KU Leuven, différenthistoriens, archivistes, spécialistes de l'héritage culturel, bibliothécaires et spécialistes deterrain venant de zones de conflit récents pendront la parole. Nous établirons un étatde lieu et tenteront d'explorer les (futurs) apports de la révolution numérique dans cecontexte. En rassemblant les gens et les connaissances, le Goethe-Institut veut, ensembleavec le British Council, mettre en place un réseau solide comme barrière contre la foliedestructrice.

Nie wieder Krieg, nooit meer boekverbrandingen! Het lijkt jammergenoeg een schreeuw inhet ijle voor wie de actualteit volgt... Als Duitse instelling wil het Goethe-Institut deherinnering aan de wereldoorlogen levendig houden. Het verleden als leerschool voor hetheden. Een evenement in het kader van 100 jaar WO I rond de misdadige vernietigingvan de Leuvense universiteitsbibliotheek in 1914 kon dus niet uitblijven. Haast dagelijkszien we hoe ergens ter wereld erfgoed bedreigd of vernietigd wordt. Als cultureleinstelling willen we dan ook daadwerkelijk reageren en onze know how toekomstgerichtinzetten. Tijdens het colloquium "What do we lose when we lose a library?" dat wesamen met de KU Leuven organiseren, nemen historici en ervaringsdeskundigen uitrecente conflictgebieden, bibliothecarissen, archivarissen en erfgoedspecialisten het woord.We maken een stand van zaken op en gaan na hoe de digitale revolutie soelaas kanbieden. Door mensen en kennis samen te brengen, wil het Goethe-Institut, samen met hetBritish Council, meewerken aan een stevig netwerk als firewall tegen de vernietigendewaanzin.

Goethe Institut - September 9, 2015

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Local Organizing Committee

o Mel Collier, KU Leuven

o Pierre Delsaerdt, University of Antwerp

o Sonja Griegoschewki, Goethe-Institut Brüssel

o Andrew Murray, British Council

o Charles-Henri Nyns, UC Louvain

o Hilde Van Kiel, KU Leuven

o Garrelt Verhoeven, KU Leuven

o Lieve Watteeuw, Chair, KU Leuven

Scientific Board

o Katlijn Malfliet, KU Leuven

o Mel Collier, KU Leuven

o Hilde Van Kiel, KU Leuven

o Almuth Corbach, Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

o Pierre Delsaerdt, University of Antwerp

o Mark Derez, KU Leuven

o Claudia Fabian, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München

o Fenella France, Library of Congress, Washington

o Stefan Gradmann, KU Leuven

o Sonja Griegoschewki, Goethe Institut, Brussels

o Ursula Hartwieg, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

o Kristian Jensen, British Library, London

o Giles Mandelbrote, Lambeth Palace Library, London

o Leo Kenis, KU Leuven

o David Mc Kitterick, Trinity College, Cambridge

o Elmar Mittler, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen

o Andrew Murray, British Council, Brussels

o Charles-Henri Nyns, UCL, Louvain-la-Neuve

o Jan Van der Stock, KU Leuven

o Marc Vervenne, KU Leuven, Unesco Belgium

o Lieve Watteeuw, KU Leuven

o An Smets, KU Leuven

o Susie Bioletti, Trinity College Dublin

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Program

9 September 2015, University Louvain–La Neuve & KU Leuven,

University Hall, Naamsestraat 22, 3000 Leuven

9.00-12.00 Registration

9.30-12.00 Pre-conference visits

12.00-13.00Bus Transport from the University Hall to the Université Catholique de

Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve

13.00-14.30Welcome and lunch in the Aula Magna, Foyer du lac

Charles-Henry Nyns & Hilde Van Kiel

14.30-16.30

Keynote lectures (Auditoire Montesquieu 3)

Welcome

Rector UCL, Louvain-La-Neuve, Vincent Blondel

Honorary Rector, KU Leuven, Marc Vervenne

Chair: Charles-Henry Nyns

14.30 – 15.10 Alan Kramer, Trinity College Dublin "Dynamic of

Destruction. Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War".

15.10 – 15.50 Aleida Assman, University of Konstanz "The burning of

books as an assault on cultural memory"

15.50 – 16.30 Emmanuelle Danchin, Université de Paris, IRICE

16.40-17.40 Bus Transport to the University Hall, Naamsestraat 22, KU Leuven

17.40-19.00 Registration

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9 September 2015, University Louvain–La Neuve & KU Leuven,

University Hall, Naamsestraat 22, 3000 Leuven

19.00–20.30

Plenary Session (Promotion Hall)

Welcome Marc Vervenne

Opening Lectures

Chair: Marc Vervenne

19.30 – 19.45 Mark Derez, Archivist KU Leuven – The Flames of

Louvain

19.45 – 20.30 Abdel Kader Haïdara, Timbuktu - Directeur Général de la

Bibliothèque Mamma Haïdara – Les Manuscrits de Tombouctou

Simultaneous translation to English

Rector KU Leuven, Rik Torfs

Ambassador of the US in Belgium, Denise Bauer

Ambassador of Germany in Belgium, Rüdiger Lüdeking

20.30 Opening Reception, Jubilee Hall

10 September 2015, University Hall & Maria-Theresia College

(MTC)

8.30 Registration

9.30-11.00

Plenary Session (Promotion Hall)

Keynote lectures

Welcome

Chair: Hilde Van Kiel

9.45 – 10.30 Michael F. Suarez, S.J., Director of Rare Book School at

the University of Virginia Seedbank, Shrine, and Zettabyte: Toward

an Archaeology of the C21 Library

10.30 – 11.00 Introduction to the Hannes Möller artwork ‘Solitaire by

the rector Rik Torfs

11.00-

11.30Coffee & Poster Presentation, Jubilee Hall

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(MTC)

11.30-

13.00

Plenary Session, Promotion HallKeynote Lectures

Chair: Garrelt Verhoeven

11.30 – 12.15 David McKitterick, Librarian and Vice-Master of Trinity College, CambridgeHow far can digitization and other records save libraries?

12.15 – 13.00 Father Justin, Librarian Saint Catherine Monastery, SinaiThe Sinai Library: A Resource of Continuing Significance

13.00-

14.00Lunch, Jubilee Hall

14.00-

17.20

Parallel Sessions

Venue 1/ Promotion Hall, Hallen, Naamsestraat 22, 3000 Leuven

Session 1: History of Destruction of Libraries

Chair:: Kristian Jenssen

• 14.00 Welcome

• 14.05 - 14.30

Colin Higgins, St Catharine's College, University of

Cambridge, UK

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria as Myth and

Metaphor. Reasons to be skeptical

• 14.30 - 14.55

Noël Golvers, KU Leuven, Belgium

Western Libraries of the Jesuits in China (17th-18th century).

Their impact and their destruction

• 14.55 - 15.20

Claudia Rabel, Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes

(CNRS), France

The manuscripts of Chartres damaged during World War II. A

virtual Renaissance

• 15.20 – 15.40 Coffee, Jubilee Hall

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(MTC)

14.00-

17.20

Session 2: History of Destruction of Libraries II

Chair: David Mc Kitterick

• 15.40 – 16.05

Claudia Fabian, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München,

Germany War and post-war traumata – lessons for today’s

dealing with cultural heritage? A personal view from the

Bavarian State Library

• 16.05 – 16.30

Jerzy Kalizuk, Warsaw University, Poland

Medieval Latin manuscripts of the Polish National Library lost

during the Second World War. Reconstruction of a Collection

• 16.30 – 16.55

Joshua Harris, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US

Lessons from World War II and the Holocaust. What can be

done to save Cultural Heritage and Memory during times of

War?

• 16.55 – 17.20

Jody Butterworth, British Library, London, UK

The Endagered Achive Programme: a global approach to

preservation. Ten years of Endangered Archives Programme

Venue 2 / Maria-Theresia College (MTC), Sint-Michielsstraat 6, 3000

Leuven

Session 3: Library Collection Research & Advanced Imaging

Technologies

Chair: Susie Bioletti

• 14.05 Welcome

• 14.05 – 14.30

Pnina Shor, Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem, Israel The

Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library Project The

preservation and Digitization of the Dead Sea Scrolls

• 14.30 – 14.55

Fenella France, Library of Congress, Washington, US Spectral

Imaging: Capturing and retrieving information you didn’t know

your library collections contained. How libraries can expand

and save their collection knowledge

• 14.55 – 15.20

Mike Toth, Washington, US How to we preserve and share

our digital library information?

• 15.20 – 15.40 Coffee, Lobby

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(MTC)

14.00-

17.20

Session 4: Preservation, Imaging & Collection Care

Chair: Fenella France

• 15.40 – 16.05

Lieve Watteeuw, KU Leuven, Belgium

Imaging Endangered Books. Timbuktu Manuscripts in Focus

• 16.05 – 16.30

Paul Garside, British Library, London, UK

The Repercussions of a Historic Library Fire - A

Multidisciplinary Approach to Treating Fire-Damaged

Parchment from the Cotton Collection

• 16.30 – 16.55

Ursula Hartwieg, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Stiftung

Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Germany KEK.

One way to a nationwide strategy for preservation of our

written cultural Heritage

• 16.55 – 17.20

Emma Dadson, Harwell Restoration, Didcot, UK

Emergency plan or paper exercise? Preventing Emergency

plans from being just paper exercise.

18.00-

19.00

Public Lecture (University Hall, Promotion Hall)

Chair: Berthold Franke

Wolfgang Schivelbusch (Hamburger Stiftung zur Förderung von

Wissenschaft und kultur) A dialogue – „Die Bibliothek von Löwen.

Eine Episode aus der Zeit der Weltkriege“

Introduction by Berthold Franke, Goethe Institut

Moderator: Luk Draye, KU Leuven, Faculty of Art

Simultaneous translation German – English

20.00Conference Dinner, Faculty Club, Groot Begijnhof (we meet at 19.30

at the registration desk to go by foot to Faculty Club)

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11 September 2015 University Hall, Promotion Hall, Maria-Theresia

College (MTC) & University Library

9.00-12.15

Morning session 5 & 6 Venue 1/ Promotion Hall, University Hall,

Naamsestraat 22, 3000 Leuven

Session 5: History & Destruction of Libraries III

Chair: Pierre Delsaerdt

• 9.00 – 9.45 Keynote lecture

Ismet Ovčina, Director of the National and University Library

of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

What The National and University Library of Bosnia and

Herzegovina lost after 25/26th August 1992?

• 9.45 – 10.10

Jan Alessandrini, University of St Andrews, UK

Bombs on Books. Rescue, Reconstruction and restitution of

German Libraries destroyed by the Allies in World War II

• 10.10 – 10.35

Marica Šapro-Ficovic, Dubrovnik Libraries

Life and libraries go on despite destruction. The libraries

during the Croatian War 1991-1995

• 10.35 – 11.00 Coffee, Jubilee Hall

Session 6 : Social & Cultural Impact of Libraries

Chair: Lieve Watteeuw

• 11.00 – 11.25 Keynote lecture

Stephan Roman, British Council, Regional Director, South Asia

Supporting Libraries in societies under pressure. The British

Council experience from 1934 to 2015

• 11.25 – 11.50

Jane Maxwell, Trinity College Library Dublin, Ireland

There’s more than one way to lose a library. Archival

Collection Development and the History of Women.

• 11.50 – 12.15

Christophe Jacobs, Blue Shield, France,

Saving cultural heritage : increasing people’s resilience

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9.00-12.15

Morning session 7 & 8 Venue 2/ Maria-Theresia College (MTC), Sint-

Michielsstraat 6, 3000 Leuven

Session 7. Digital Libraries & Case Studies

Chair Mel Collier

• 9.00 – 9.25

Vicky Breemen, Institute for Information Law (IViR),

Amsterdam, Nl

Digital libraries, digital law? A tale of copyright challenges

and chances

• 9.25 – 9.50

An Smets, KU Leuven, Belgium

War, division and digital reunification. What do the Omont

Collection and the Lecture Notes kept at the University

Library of Leuven have in common?

• 9.50 -10.15

Robert Nouwen, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium

An instrument of democracy. Libraries in a changing world

• 10.15 – 11.00 Coffee, Lobby

Session 8. Case studies on destruction & digital reunification

Chair Mel Collier

•

• 11.00 – 11.25

Per Cullhed, Uppsala University Library, Sweden

“A library life, most pleasant and sweet” On the essence of

Libraries

• 11.25 – 11.50

Trudi Noordermeer, University of Antwerp, Belgium

What happened to the library of Public Administration (MPA)

and Business Administration (MBA) of Sana’a University in

Yemen? Assessment of a New Digital Library at Sana’a

University in Yemen

12.40-

14.30Recital on the carillon of the University LibraryLunch in the University Library, Ladeuzeplein, 3000 Leuven

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14.30-

15.30

Closing lectures (University Library, Ladeuzeplein, Reading Room, Plenary Session)

Chair: Michael Suarez

14.30 – 15.00And what if we lose the Web?Herbert Van de Sompel, Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory

15.00 – 15.20Julia Brungs, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) A Risk Register for Documentary Heritage - IFLA's work to safeguard written heritage Round Table

Closing statement: Michael Suarez

15.30Invitation to the farewell drink, Hilde Van Kiel

Reception at the Entrance Hall, Central Library

Aleida Assmann

Aleida Assmann studied English Literature and Egyptology at theuniversities of Heidelberg and Tübingen. Her main areas ofresearch are historical anthropology, history of media, historyand theory of reading and writing, cultural memory, with specialemphasis on Holocaust and trauma. Since 1993 she holds thechair of English Literature and Literary Theory at the Universityof Konstanz, Germany. She taught as a guest professor atvarious universities (Princeton, Yale, Chicago and Vienna). In2008 she received an Honorary Degree from the University ofOslo, in 2014 the Heineken Price for History of the RoyalNetherland Academy of Sciences. The Max Planck ResearchAward (2009) allowed her to establish a research group onmemory and history (2009-2015).

Father Justin

Father Justin grew up in El Paso, Texas, and graduated from theUniversity of Texas at Austin in 1971. Entering a Greek Orthodoxmonastery three years later, he was tonsured a monk in 1977,and ordained deacon and priest the following year. He has beena member of Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt, since1996, where his responsibilities include the photography ofmanuscripts. In 2005, he was elected librarian and member ofthe Holy Council of the Fathers.

Abdel Kader Haïdara

Abdel Kader Haïdara est Directeur Général de la BibliothèqueMamma Haïdara et Président Exécutif de l’ONG SAVAMA-DCI(sauvegarde et valorisation des manuscrits pour la défense de laculture islamique). Monsieur Haidara est l’initiateur etcoordinateur principal des opérations secrètes d’évacuation desmanuscrits de Tombouctou vers Bamako au moment del’occupation de la ville de Tombouctou par les groupes armés.Ces opérations ont permis le sauvetage de 95% des manuscritsde Tombouctou. Il a été honoré de plusieurs reconnaissancesdont les plus récentes sont : le titre de Docteur Honoris Causade l’École Normale Supérieure (ENS) de Lyon, France en 2012 etle prix allemand pour l’Afrique en octobre 2014.

Keynote speakers

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Alan Kramer

Alan Kramer is Professor of European History, Trinity CollegeDublin. He has a particular interest in the cultural history ofwarfare, in a broad transnational perspective that includes boththe military and civilians in the era of the First World War,especially concerning Germany, Belgium, France, Austria-Hungary,and Italy. Publications on the cultural history of violence, warcrimes, prisoners of war, and economic history in the era of theFirst World War in a context extending to the Second WorldWar. Founding co-editor of 1914-1918 Online: InternationalEncyclopedia of World War I (launched October 2014); currentresearch: global history of concentration camps.

David McKitterick

David McKitterick is Librarian and Vice-Master of Trinity College,Cambridge, and Honorary Professor of Bibliography in theUniversity. He is one of the general editors of theCambridge History of the Book in Britain. His most recent bookis Old books, new technologies: the representation, conservationand transformation of books since 1700 (Cambridge U.P.), whichwon the SHARP DeLong prize for a book in book historypublished in 2013.

Ismet Ovčina

Dr. Ismet Ovčina (Bosnia and Herzegowina) graduated from theschool of Political Sciences in Sarajevo, the Department ofPolitics, where he also gained his masters degree (1989) anddoctoral degree (2004). In the period 1994-1996, he performedthe duty of a member of the Executive board of the City ofSarajevo for Cooperation with UNPROFOR, UNHCR andhumanitarian organizations. In October 2005, he was appointedthe manager of the National and University Library of Bosnia

and Herzegowina. He is a member of the Commission forProfessional Library Exams and international commissions for librarianshipand Information technologies, and a member of the Senate of the

Sarajevo University. Since the conference of IFLA (TheInternational Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) in August 2011, he is themember of IFLA Standing committee for the National Libraries for the period 2011-2015.He is the author of numerous publications (Bosnia and Bosniacs in Croatian Policy –1878-1914; Political Parties and Democracy; Libraries Between Reality and Possibility) andof professional publications in the field of political system and science, as well aspublications regarding the librarian policy.

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Stephan Roman

Stephan Roman is currently Regional Director for the BritishCouncil in South Asia with overall responsibility for all BritishCouncil operations and programmes in India, Pakistan, SriLanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Iran. Prior to thisStephan worked in Europe and North America for 10 years.

Between 1996- 2001 Stephan was Director of the BritishCouncil’s global library and Information Services network andplayed a leading role with the World Bank in establishing GlobalKnowledge, an alliance of over 100 organisations committed toempowering developing countries through the use of ICT andnew technologies.

Among others, Stephan has worked in Indonesia, Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iranwhere he was a World Bank consultant at the Islamic Azad University between 1993-94.Stephan gained a BA in Modern History at Oxford University in 1974 and an MA inLibrary and Information Science from the University of Sheffield in 1976. He is the authorof The Development of Islamic Library Collections in Western Europe and North America(Mansell, 1990) and is a specialist in the history of the East India Company and in theCathar and Huguenot movements in France.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch

Special Guest

Wolfgang Schivelbusch, author of Die Bibliothek von Löwen. EineEpisode aus der Zeit der Weltkriege

Wolfgang Schivelbusch (born November 26, 1941 in Berlin)wrote in 1983 the first comprehensive work on the burning ofthe Leuven University Library. Schivelbusch is a Germanscholar of Cultural studies, historian, and book author. Hestudied literature, sociology, and philosophy. Schivelbusch is wellknown for using the method of history of mentalities.Schivelbusch also works on the history of perception andcultural history. In 2003 he was awarded the HeinrichMann prize of the Academie of Arts in Berlin.

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Michael F. Suarez, S.J.

Michael F. Suarez, S.J. is University Professor andDirector of Rare Book School at the University ofVirginia, where he leads the Mellon Fellowship ofScholars in Critical Bibliography. The holder ofresearch fellowships from The American Council ofLearned Societies, the National Endowment for theHumanities, and the Radcliffe Institute for AdvancedStudy at Harvard University, he is also HonoraryCurator of the University of Virginia’s specialcollections and Professor of English. His recent booksinclude The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010, co-edited with H. R. Woudhuysen), a million-word

reference work on the history of books and manuscripts from the invention of writing tothe present day. The Sunday Telegraph in London called it “colossal” and “a paradisefor book lovers;” while The Wall Street Journal praised it as “a fount of knowledge wherethe Internet is but a slot machine.”

A Jesuit priest, Suarez is currently co-General Editor of The Collected Works of GerardManley Hopkins, and Editor-in-Chief of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO), one ofthe largest digital humanities projects extant today. Prof. Suarez’s two 2014 publicationsare The Book: A Global History (co-edited with H. R. Woudhuysen), and a scholarlyedition of The Dublin Notebook of Gerard Manley Hopkins (co-edited with L. J. Higgins).He is the 2014–15 J. R. Lyell Reader in Bibliography at Oxford University.

Herbert Van de Sompel

Herbert van de Sompel is the team leader of thePrototyping Team at the Research Library of the LosAlamos National Laboratory. The Team does researchregarding various aspects of scholarly communicationin the digital age, including information infrastructure,interoperability, digital preservation and indicators forthe assessment of the quality of units of scholarlycommunication…

Herbert has played a major role in creating the OpenArchives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting(OAI-PMH), the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse &Exchange specifications (OAI-ORE), the OpenURL

Framework for Context-Sensitive Services, the SFX linking server, the bX scholarlyrecommender service, and info URI. Currently, he works with his team on the OpenAnnotation, Memento (time travel for the Web), ResourceSync, and Hiberlink projects.

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Keynote lecture

September 9, 15.10 – 15.50

The burning of books as an assault on cultural memory

Aleida Assman

University of Konstanz

The destruction of books has a long history, dating back to the famous library ofAlexandria. Paradoxically, this violent act of destruction and enforced forgetting has leftan indelible trace in human memory that testifies to the value and fragility of books ascarriers of knowledge and cultural identity. My presentation will look at some linksbetween German acts of ‚libricide’ in the First World War and in the NS State, discussingthem in a comparative perspective. It will also focus on some of the the challenges thatcultural memory faces in a digital world..

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Keynote lecture

September 09, 15.50 – 16.30

IRICE

Emmanuelle Danchin

Université de Paris

This lecture will be given in French

Every year, there are accidental or deliberate displacements of archives holding andlibrary collections in the world. Every year, precious fragments of the world documentaryheritage disappear because of natural causes (paper crumbled to dust, fragmentsattacked by light, heat, humidity…), because of natural disasters (floods, storms,earthquakes) or because of human acts (war, bombardment, fire). This resulted insignificant losses and sometimes irremediable losses.

The Leuven Library in Belgium, twice destroyed in 1914 and in 1940, is in line with astory of the destruction of libraries and archives during the war. The fire of the LeuvenLibrary in August 1914, and its later reconstruction raises the question of what you losewhen a library disappears and the benefits made by rebuilding it (what you win when itis rebuilt). This echoes to devastations which also affect libraries, archival collections andmuseums today.

It is around this twofold inquiry into the loss and benefit that this proposal is based.

We will study a moment in the Louvain library history, a period of 14 years, from itsburning by the German troops in 1914 to it first renaissance in 1928, the year of thenew library’s inauguration.

The word library is polysemic and means both container (a space, an architecture) andan abstract content (texts), as well as an organizing apparatus. This polysemy is thecenter of our article. It will allow to revisit the debates which came up concerning thevanishing of the container: the disappearance of an architecture, of a centre of activity,but also about the destruction of the library’s content which symbolised at the sametime accumulated wealth, an idea, methods and tradition. It will allow to clarifyreactions, sometimes aggressive towards the announcement of the library’s destruction in1914, and also the choices made concerning materials used for reconstruction and thereconstitution of the archives.

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Keynote lecture

September 10, 12.15 – 13.00

The Sinai Library: A Resource of Continuing Significance

Father Justin

Librarian Saint Catherine Monastery

The seventh to the tenth century was a time of important transition for Sinai, aboutwhich we know least from traditional historical sources. But the Sinai library hasmanuscripts from that time. These were enhanced in 1975 with the recovery ofmanuscripts collectively known as the New Finds. And multi-spectral imaging is revealingpalimpsest texts that until now have been illegible. From these, we can learn much. At atime when important monastic centres at Pharan and Raithou were abandoned and fellinto ruins, life at the Sinai monastery continued, protected by its sixth century fortresswalls, and its extreme isolation. Sinai was a place of great austerity. Yet it remainedfaithful to its Greek heritage. And this heritage was transmitted to the Syriac, Arabic,Georgian, and Slavonic speaking worlds. Latin texts reveal that Sinai was in contact withthe West, more than has been realized. Firmans show that Sinai remained a respectedChristian community within the larger world of Islam. Today, the monastery is no longerisolated. The deliberate destruction of libraries in the Middle East earlier this year showsthe relevance of the topic of this conference. It reminds us that libraries are fragile andvulnerable. There is an urgency to preserve the treasures of the Sinai library, and tomake them accessible and better known. They bear a message of spiritual dedication,and at the same time, of tolerance and respect, a message that is needed in today’sworld.

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Keynote lecture

September 9, 14.30 – 15.10

Dynamic of Destruction. Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War

Alan Kramer

Trinity College Dublin

In this lecture I examine the wave of cultural destruction and mass killing that swept theworld from the Balkans in 1912, via the western front, Turkey, Italy, and eastern Europe,to the seven-year catastrophe of war and revolution in Russia. The German atrocitiesduring the invasion of Belgium and France in 1914, in particular the destruction ofLouvain/Leuven, symbolized a war on culture and a new culture of war. Using a widerange of examples and eye-witness accounts from across Europe, I depict an entirecontinent plunging into a chilling new world of mass mobilization, total warfare, and thecelebration of nationalist or ethnic violence – often directed expressly at the enemy’scivilian population. Wartime cultural mobilization and mass killing were decisive in thedevelopment of the communist and fascist regimes; the First World War made theunthinkable thinkable.

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Keynote lecture

September 10, 11.30 – 12.15

How far can digitization and other records save libraries?

David McKitterick

Librarian and Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

By definition, when we consider loss we look at the past, at some kind of destruction: atphysical, intellectual and social bereavement. We also know that this is only partial: that- at least for a while - memory retains something, however fragmentary that may be. Towhat extent is it possible to guard against loss, and build for the future?

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Keynote lecture

September 11, 09.00 – 09.45

What The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina lost after 25/26th August 1992?

Ismet Ovčina

Director of the National and University Library of Sarajevo

Cultural heritage, which, in accordance with the UN document, the Hague and otherConvention, should be protected, often has been the direct target of aggression. InSarajevo, in the period 1992 - 1995, in the face of world public, heavy weapons weretargeted civil and cultural facilities such as institutions of culture heritage. An illustrativeexample is the shelling of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina,25th/26th August 1992, which was almost completely destroyed, the “Vijecnica” buildingand about 90% (about approximately 2 million library units) of library collections. Thebuilding which housed the library, known as the "Vijecnica", built in 1894, in a pseudo-Moorish appearance, was targeted by incendiary projectiles, with a clear strategic goal:the destruction of cultural and historical heritage, which bears witness to the centuries-old coexistence and identity of the multi confessional and multicultural Bosnia andHerzegovina. Reconstruction of the building is carried out in stages and finally completedin May 2014, with financial support of donors from the world and mainly financed fromthe EU IPA funds

The National and University Library still haven’t moved in the “Vijecnica” building becauseof ownership relations (although the Land Registry except registered: the owner of thebuilding is the State, and user: National and University Library of Bosnia andHerzegovina for more than 50 years.). However, National and University Library of Bosniaand Herzegovina, immediately after the devastating fire in 1992 started reconstitutionand reconstruction of the destroyed library holdings. Despite apocalyptic damage, theLibrary today inherits the most precious specimens of B&H treasury: manuscripts,incunabula, rarities, graphic and cartographic collections, whose preservation is the prideand huge responsibility of the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina.As the central State library, not only traditionally, but also by it's factual capacities,NULB&H represents B&H in numerous International vocational, cultural, informational,scientific and educational organizations (IFLA; CDNL; CENL; LIBER, TEL; WDL and others)and has the oportunity to participate in the creation of proffessional standards in Europeand internationally.

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Keynote lecture

September 11, 11.00 – 11.25

Supporting Libraries in societies under pressure.

Stephan Roman

British Council, Regional Director, South Asia

. A DAWNING REALISATION OF THE NEED TO PROMOTE THE FREEDOM OF KNOWLEDGEAND IDEAS.

• The first British Council offices were established in countries under growing pressurefrom Nazi and fascist ideas and influences- Romania, Poland, Austria, Egypt, Argentina,Portugal. Libraries and reading rooms were central to the British Council mission fromits founding years. Libraries were seen as safe spaces where anyone could come toobtain unrestricted access to books and journals which were not censored and wherethe open exchange of information and ideas was to be encouraged.

• OPPOSING FASCISM - THE SECOND WORD WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH. (1939-1950).TheBritish Council saw its mission as being to maintain free access to ideas in countrieswhere there was a struggle for influence taking place between the Allies and the Axispowers. This was particularly the case in countries like Romania, Portugal, Spain,Argentina, and Egypt. Olivia Manning in her novel “The Balkan Trilogy”captures thedrama and danger of these days, with its descriptions of the British Council library inBucharest operating under growing threat of an Iron Guard putsch.

• MAINTAINING FREE ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS DURING THE COLD WAR(1950-1990).In the first phase of the Cold War, the British Council struggled tomaintain cultural centres and libraries in the countries falling under Soviet control. TheBritish Council- and its libraries- were seen as a direct threat to the Soviet regimes inalmost all these countries and were closed down everywhere except in Poland andYugoslavia. In these two countries the British Council Libraries were amongst the onlyplaces where people could go and get unrestricted access to Western literature,knowledge and books.

• FROM THE POST COMMUNIST SPACE TO CYBER SPACE - REINVERNTING LIBRARIES INTHE 1990s .The collapse of the Soviet system in the period 1989-1991 opened upnew opportunities for the British Council to re-establish libraries across Central andEastern Europe. Between 1990-1997 a major programme was launched by the BritishCouncil and the UK Know How Fund to support the development of libraries as publicknowledge spaces in all the countries of the former Soviet bloc. .

• COMING FULL CIRCLE- LIBRARIES AS SPACES FOR SAFE DIALOGUE AND KNOWLEDGEEXCHANGE IN SOCIETIES UNDER PRESSURE.

• Between 2001-2010 there was widespread closure of British Council libraries aroundthe world as the impact of new digital technologies gathered momentum. However, thestruggle to support the free and open expression of ideas is never over and since2011 there is a growing realisation that in some parts of the world there is still a realneed to support libraries as safe spaces where people can access information that isnot censored or controlled and where they can freely exchange ideas with each other.

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Keynote lecture

September 10, 09.45 – 10.30

‘Seedbank, Shrine, and Zettabyte: Toward an Archaeology of the C21 Library’

Michael Suarez

Professor and Director of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia

In an environment of unprecedented change, what do we lose when our workingphilosophy of what the library can be is restricted to traditional models? What can wegain when we think about the C21 library in unconventional ways? Believing that thecurrent moment affords us a singular opportunity, Michael Suarez will seek to enlargeour understanding, not only of the evolving role of libraries in the digital dispensation,but also of the increasingly mission critical vocation of librarians today.

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Keynote lecture

September 11, 14.30 – 15.00

And what if we lose the Web?

Herbert Van de Sompel

Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory

The pace and extent of communication via the web is mind blowing. In the time I wrotethis abstract, over 5 million tweets were sent, Tumblr received 420000 posts, and 22000stories were blogged on WordPress. But the web is also ephemeral. A lot of what wascommunicated in these past 15 minutes will soon disappear without a trace. While onecan have endless discussions about the value of some of that vanishing information,there is no doubt that a sizable portion is relevant in the same way that materialstraditionally collected by libraries were. They are the signs of a time gone, whicheventually become essential in order to revisit it. Libraries have only to a limited extentembraced the web as a medium in need of archiving. As a result, we aren’t really losingthe libraries of the digital networked world; we aren’t even building them. But we arelosing the very materials that such libraries would be custodians of.

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Opening lecture

September 9, 19.30 – 19.45

The Flames of Louvain

Mark Derez

KU Leuven

When, at the end of August 1914, the city of Louvain was burnt down, echoes of thedisaster rippled far and wide, both in Belgium and abroad. As a university town, Leuvenenjoyed some renown and setting fire to its university library was deemed a culturalatrocity that outraged and shocked anyone who treasured scholarship and Westernculture. Leuven was not alone in its plight. In September 1914, German troops destroyedReims cathedral. Both Leuven and Reims thus became cultural icons, symbolizing theirnations’ war ordeals and acquiring prominent roles in the line-up of the so-calledmartyred towns. They not only symbolized endangered European heritage but the entireWestern civilization and humanity’s universal values. In the propaganda war too, the fireturned the minds: Germany was depicted as a nation of cultural barbarians and Leuvenwas considered ‘une île latine dans une mer germanique.’ People visiting the scene ofdestruction read Ici finit la culture allemande on theruins.

The library thus became a symbolic vehicle in a political propaganda battle. A postcardwith a double photograph of the sumptuous gallery of books before and after the firewent viral worldwide. Its effect was outrage and solidarity, which suited the university asit resulted in funds to rebuild the library and its collections. The idea of giving Leuven anew library came from the reputable Institut de France, but it was the Americans whostole the show with the funding and building of a new spectacular library. In its splendor,it also took on the role as a war monument, albeit implicitly since the rector hailed thenewly acclaimed appeasement and rapprochement following the Locarno conference in1925.

Despite extensive American involvement, the new library was still considered a Belgian-French joint venture, much to the dismay of part of the Flemish public opinion. Flemishstudents had returned from the war with strong and even radical convictions about theirlanguage and culture and refused to attend the inauguration of a library re-erected bywhat they believed to be a joint francophone effort.

The new library was burnt down a second time when the Germans invaded in May 1940.A campaign to restore the labour of scholarship and culture was no longer appropriate:the Holocaust removed arson of a library from the war scene as futile.

Epilogue: what do we lose when we split a library in two? At the end of the 60s, thebilingual university of Leuven was split and the library content was divided over the twonew libraries rather arbitrarily. Books were divided based on whether they had even oruneven numbers. This was seen by some as the third destruction of the library, which issomewhat understandable considering the symbolic value the library had acquired in bothwars. Those who opposed the split-up called it un péché contre l’esprit. However, splittingthe library was probably not more than a simple, pragmatic, rational and fair solution toa tremendously complex political problem.

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Oral presentation session 1:

History of Destruction of Libraries

September 10, 14.05 – 14.30

The destruction of the Library of Alexandria as Myth and Metaphor

Colin Higgins

St Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom

The Library of Alexandria has few equals in myth or metaphor. The application of historyspoils both - the myth fractures and the metaphor crumbles for lack of foundation.Rubbing away the fictions and wish-fulfilment leaves almost nothing. The library has, inlarge part, been constructed upon speculation and presumption.

My paper will argue for a sceptical reading of the history of the Library of Alexandria,and question the ease with which it has been used metonymously. It mines the earliestdescriptions of the library to show how even in ancient and early-medieval sources, thelibrary and its destruction served as a colourful shorthand of the author’s ownprejudices. There are at least four competing narratives of the library's end, which growor diminish with the politics of the age. Modern assumptions about the library’sdestruction are tested against ancient sources, to show how (mis)understandings of thelibrary have been mapped onto early twenty-first century concerns.

The paper will briefly consider the dangers of the common Alexandrine narrative, for theLibrary of Alexandria is frequently invoked in many association fallacies. More than oneinternet utopian has claimed the library as an inspiration or aspiration. More than onephysical library has been built in an attempt to recreate it. But most of the things wehave compared the ancient library to are not like it at all. Most of the things we imagineit to have been are either untrue or unknowable.

While significant intellectual activity did take place in Alexandria, to imagine that it musthave taken place in a single library is to misunderstand the nature of research, studyand learning. This category mistake informs public decision-making and funding oflibraries today. It misunderstands the organic nature of our institutions, imagining themprincipally as creators of intellectual life rather than reflections upon it. While librariescan be fulcrums of culture, few of the larger public libraries built in the last decade canbear the weight of social and cultural responsibility placed upon them.

Finally, by imagining library destruction as necessarily cataclysmic, library funders can beblind to their slow death. In truth, it is probable that the Library of Alexandria literallycrumbled away, the victim of climate, budget cuts, and administrative disinterest. A petproject of the Ptolemies, it could not survive being passed to the Romans, who had theirown libraries to fund. We can’t conceive of the Library of Alexandria dying by athousand cuts. It may become easier if we take a look at the steady reconfiguration,commercialization, and slow dismantling of some of our libraries today.

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September 10, 14.30 – 14.55

Western Libraries of the Jesuits in China (17th-18th century). Their impact and their destruction

Noël Golvers

KU Leuven, Belgium

After their establishment in China and Peking, and especially since ca. 1611 EuropeanJesuits developed a ‘master plan’, to create a network of Western libraries throughoutthe country, with a ‘central library’ in the Portuguese college of Peking (“Xitang’, later‘Nantang’, with a secondary branch “Dong-tang”) and subsidiary libraries in the otherresidences: after a first systematic implementation, during the European ‘tour’ by theNicolas Trigault & Johann Terrentius (1615-1618) many thousands of books, in allpossible ‘faculties’ were bought, including 330 items in the ‘Officina Plantiniana’. Arrivedin Peking, ca. 1625, these became the ‘core’ of the intercultural exchange between theEuropean Jesuits (from Late-Humanism > Enlightenment) with the Chinese ‘literati’, in somany different fields as astronomy, technology, medicine, philosophy and - not to forget- religion. This library - and ca. 1700 a French counterpart (‘Beitang’) - was indeed the‘hub’ of visits, discussions and book exchanges. In addition they were since the beginningdeveloped as true ‘working libraries’: centers of scholarly activities, around theAstronomical Bureau (Qintianjian) and in other engineering projects, in reading andwriting Chinese compositions, and philosophical-religious discourses, the scholarlyactivities delivering the ultimate argument for the continuity of their stay during twocenturies in Peking (and China). During this period, the book supply from Europe - thanksto a wellorganized logistical and communication network - had been continued, both inthe Portuguese and the French residence, until the very end of the mission ca. 1800,with the arrival of the personal library of Alexandre de Gouveia, the last bishop of Peking(“� 1812). In the course of the 18th century (1724; 1748) anti-Christian decrees of theEmperor started a progressive dismanteling of the network of Jesuit libraries over China,pushing to a progressive concentration of (a selection) of 10 local book collections inthe Portuguese college of Peking. While that other important collection in China, viz. thelibrary of the Jesuit college in Macao was, due to the Pombal administration, destroyedin one day in 1762 - so far without leaving any substantial trace - the Portuguesecollege in Peking kept the heritage of ca. 200 years of intellectual contacts betweenEuropean scholars and Chinese intelligentsia in Peking and throughout China. When inthe 1820s the last European fathers left Peking, the Jesuit libraries had seemed ‘lost’forever: that of Dongtang by accidental fire (1812), of the Beitang by being buried (1838)and that of the Nantang by being entrusted to the Russian archimandrite of Peking(1828).

What physically survived of these libraries was re-grouped in 1860 by Mgr. Mouly, CM,and extended with new (antiquarian) acquisitions into a new Beitang library. Also thisdisappeared, for a second time, when being confiscated in 1949/1950 by the Maoisttroops. Until today, this extremely rich patrimony library of intellectual exchanges betweenEurope and China remains - apart from some exceptions - outside the reach of theresearchers, packed in boxes.

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September 10, 14.55 – 15.20

The manuscripts of Chartres damaged during World War II. A virtual Renaissance.

Claudia Rabel

Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes (CNRS), France

Until 1944, the collection of medieval manuscripts in the municipal library at Chartreswas one of the most prestigious in France, because its contents were directly related tothe history of its famous cathedral school, so vigorous in the first half of the twelfthcentury. The catalogue published in 1890 listed some 530 medieval manuscripts, thegreat majority coming from the cathedral chapter and the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Père-en-Vallée. On the 26th of May 1944, American aircraft accidently dropped bombson Chartres, and the municipal library was destroyed. The flames devoured nearly twothirds of the medieval manuscripts. Those that managed to escape were to survive invery different states of preservation. Starting in 1948, researchers and librarians identifiedfragments and regrouped them by shelf-mark at Chartres. These martyred manuscriptshad to be handled with extreme care. Consequently, their consultation becameexceptional. By and large, the collection was consigned to oblivion by scholars, and theidea that it had been destroyed or was totally inaccessible became a commonplace.

Since 2005, researchers at the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (CNRS)have set about to provide “A virtual Renaissance for the damaged manuscripts ofChartres”. This paper will present aims of this long term project and the discoveriesalready made. There are three main technical and scientific objectives: 1) the high-resolution digitization of the manuscripts; 2) the humidification and relaxation of some ofthe shrunken leaves, so that they can be gently stretched back into shape, enabling usto read the texts; 3) the identification of the texts in each of the photographedmanuscripts and the virtual rearrangement of the fragments. The digitized manuscriptscan be consulted in IRHT’s virtual library (http://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/). It is linked to theweb site “Rediscovering the manuscripts from Chartres”(http://www.manuscrits-de-chartres.fr/), which will progressively provide a description and all availabledocumentation for every medieval manuscript from the library at Chartres, whether it hassurvived or not. The site will also make a census of manuscripts made in Chartres, butscattered throughout the world.

With this project and the digitized images, we hope to excite new interest in the study ofChartrain authors and manuscripts. Our research has already corrected a somewhatromanticized vision of the manuscript collection at Chartres. The books that constitutedthe historic witnesses of the cathedral school of the twelfth century had alreadydisappeared by the late sixteenth century. But the library of Chartres is nonethelessexceptional. It is rich in Carolingian manuscripts that bear witness to the early existenceof its schools and the study of ancient authors. Although many of these books haveperished or exist only in a fragmentary state, some can be studied using pre-warreproductions. The library is also rich in cartularies, obituaries and other diplomaticdocuments, which are key sources for economic and political history, for local andregional history. When printed editions can be compared to the originals, newinformation comes to light and constantly renews our knowledge. 31

Relaxation in a ‘humidifier’ (Chartres, BM, ms. 83 Relaxation in a 'humidifier' (Chartres, BM, ms. 83)

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History of Destruction of Libraries II

September 10, 15.40 – 16.05

lessons for today’s dealing with cultural heritage? A personal view from the Bavarian State Library

Claudia Fabian

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München, Germany War and post-war traumata

This is more a personal reflection from the Bavarian State Library, involved both in thedestruction and reconstruction of Leuven’s library. Taking as a starting point the post-warreconstitution activities towards Leuven, in which my pre-predecessor was involved as anexpert, this is the opportunity to reflect on both (1) the physical cultural heritage in alibrary, its uniqueness and identity value, its constant development over generations andtoday’s acquisition aspects of patrimonial safeguard, and (2) the creation of a newdigital heritage collection, its prerequisites, challenges, chances, limits and threats tophysical collections. This is also an opportunity to give a closer look to the history ofthe Bavarian State Library as melting pot of “destroyed”libraries and consider thechallenges of this past for a creative and responsible approach to recreation of librariesand dealing with new threatened libraries.

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September 10, 16.05 – 16.30

Medieval Latin manuscripts of the Polish National Library lost during the Second World War. Reconstruction of a Collection

Jerzy Kalizuk

Warsaw University, Poland

In 1944, the manuscripts collections of numerous Warsaw libraries, stored in the buildingof the Krasi'ski Collection, were burned down by the Germans. The destructionencompassed ca. 12 000 of the older, i.e. prior to 1800, manuscripts of the NationalLibrary, which amounted to more than 90 % of the whole collection. This numberincluded ca. 1500 medieval Latin codices. Moreover, all the pre-war manuscriptcatalogues were also destroyed. My paper focuses on the methods of researching lostmanuscripts, chiefly on the attempts at bringing together all the extant sources ofinformation concerning the vanished codices. One of the major types of materials,invaluable for such efforts, are the handwritten records of the pre-war researchers. Theinvestigation of these archival materials furnished data for the reconstruction of thecontent of 1445 medieval manuscripts, which in turn enabled the reconstruction of manymedieval Polish libraries, as well as researching reading and writing milieus.

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September 10, 16.30 – 16.55

US Lessons from World War II and the Holocaust. What can be done to save Cultural Heritage and Memory during times of War?

Joshua Harris

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Political and social upheaval in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe hasfrequently led to the deliberate and accidental destruction of libraries and archives.Recent wars and conflicts in Timbuktu, Egypt, Libya, Iraq and other countries around theworld demonstrate that libraries and archives, as part of the region’s cultural heritageand memory, remain vulnerable. In recent years, libraries and archives have been burned,destroyed or looted as a direct result of these conflicts. In light of such horrificconditions, those responsible for the management of these collections have little to noopportunity to plan for or remediate these tragedies. Most institutions struggle with basicoperations and have little, if any resources available for collection preservation alone,much less disaster preparedness or training.

Despite the often precarious and unstable situation of libraries and archives during timesof conflict, remnants, and in some cases, entire corpora and archives have managed tosurvive. The Holocaust of World War II is the quintessential example in this regard.During this time, local citizens and international organizations worked together to protectthe cultural heritage collections in Europe. Many of the actions taken helped protect andsave important cultural sites, including libraries and archives.

Are there lessons and practices to be learned from the manner in which these Holocaustmaterials survived? Are there standardized responses that can help to guide andestablish best practices for those caring for cultural collections in war torn regions and,in turn, mitigate the impact of war and disaster on libraries and archives? This paper willattempt to address some early research in this area, with the hopes that somerecommendations or guidance can be provided to those who find themselves in theseunfortunate situations which threaten not only human life, but the historical, creative andscholarly output of these regions.

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September 10, 16.55 – 17.20

The Endagered Achive Programme: a global approach to preservation. Ten years of Endangered Archives Programme

Jody Butterworth

British Library, London, UK

The Endangered Archives Programme administered by the British Library and sponsoredby the Arcadia Fund has been running for ten years. In that time, it has funded 246projects in 78 countries around the world and enabled communities without sufficientresources or training to preserve and digitize vulnerable material for future generations.

The surrogate copies are made available at a local institution and online via theEndangered Archives Programme’s website, currently there are over 4.5 million imagesonline. Training and Digitisation takes place within the country, the archives are notremoved and any equipment purchased as part of the grant is left in the country toenable further digitisation.

The threat to material may be due to political conflict, environmental disasters orgeneral neglect. A selection of recent projects include: Islamic manuscripts from Djenné,Mali, Palestinian newspapers held in the Al Aqsa Mosque, East Jerusalem, archives fromthe southwest Pacific islands of Tuvalu and archival records from Anguilla.

The Endangered Archives Programme has a very broad view of the term ‘archive’ andhas funded projects that focussed on rock carvings, temple murals, manuscripts, archivalrecords, newspapers and periodicals, photographs and sound recordings.

This paper will look at the programme and grant process in depth. It will also focus onexample projects and look as some of the challenges the various grant-holders have hadand how they were overcome.

EAP039 Buddhist manuscriptsfrom the library of the remoteGangtey monastery in theHimalaya EAP039 Buddhistmanuscripts from the library ofthe remote Gangtey monasteryin the Himalayan kingdom ofBhutan 36


Library Collection Research & Advanced Imaging Technologies

September 10, 14.05 – 14.30

Israel The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library Project The preservation and Digitization of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Pnina Shor

Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves in the Judean Desert some sixty yearsago, in 1947, is considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in moderntimes. The scrolls were either written or copied in the Land of Israel between 250 BCEand 68 CE. They represent the oldest written record of the Old Testament, and containthe earliest copies of every book of the Bible, except for the Book of Esther. ThisAncient Library enables us a glance into a period of time pivotal to both Judaism andChristianity. Thanks to these remarkable texts, our knowledge concerning the origins ofJudaism and early Christianity has been greatly enriched.

For many years, a group of merely ten scholars, all great experts in their respectivefields, monopolized the study of the thousands of scroll fragments of this library.Inevitably, the limited team size prevented the speedy publication of the manuscripts. Inthe early 1990’s, the Israel Antiquities Authority took major steps to advance thepublication of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This goal was essentially achieved in 2001 with thefinal publication of these important texts which are now accessible to all.

Issues of conservation, preservation and documentation of the Dead Sea Scrolls haveconcerned both scholars and conservators ever since the scrolls’ discovery. The removalof the fragile scrolls from the caves, where they had been preserved for over 2,000years, interrupted the environmental stability that had ensured their preservation for solong. Since their discovery, ravages of time, as well as from mishandling andmistreatment damaged the scrolls. In 1991, the Israel Antiquities Authority - advised byleading experts in issues relating to conservation of manuscripts written on parchmentand papyrus - established a designated conservation laboratory for the preservation ofthe Dead Sea Scrolls. The conservation and preservation of the scrolls has since beenan ongoing task, in collaboration with international experts, due to their extremebrittleness and the need to meet up with the most up-to-date conservation methods.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a universal cultural heritage. As such, it is our duty tosafeguard these precious documents and preserve them for future generations whilesharing them with the public and scholarly community worldwide, thus, the IsraelAntiquities Authority is engaged in an advanced large-scale digitization project. Theproject includes the monitoring of the scrolls as part of our conservation efforts; thecreation of highest quality color images and advanced near infrared images of allmanuscripts fragments, for public use and scholarly research; and the development ofthe digital library. The final goal is to upload and link all of the extent metadata aboutthe scrolls, their transcriptions, translations and bibliography in a user-friendly website,allowing a free access to all.

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Picture 1: Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library Home Pag Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library Home Page

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September 10, 14.30 – 14.55

Spectral Imaging: Capturing and retrieving information you didn’t know your library collections contained. How libraries can expand and save

their collection knowledge

Fenella France

Library of Congress, Washington, US

The refinement and development of new imaging technologies such as multi and hyper-spectral imaging provide a wealth of information that remains hidden and unknown withinour rich historic Library collection materials, providing new data layers by capturingimages of Library manuscripts and documents in distinct wavebands of the visible andnon-visible spectrum. This spectral data ranges from the retrieval and capture of fadedand obscured text and illustrations from original manuscript authors, erased andredacted text, through to data advancing the preservation of our collections utilizingspectral imaging for tracking and monitoring changes in condition due to exhibit,treatments and the impact of environment; capturing minute changes beyond what canbe detected with the un-aided eye. Spectral imaging at the Library of Congress alsoallows integration of data from other non-invasive analytical techniques to map objectsanalytically. Spectral imaging allows researchers to characterize pigments and inks on theobject, retrieve lost text, and illuminate creation methods. Since spectral imagingcaptures information in both the visible and non-visible regions of the spectrum, inaddition to tracking changes due to damage, this non-visible information can also beused as a unique signature for each individual Library collection item, a type ofdocument or manuscript unique identifier; an area of security becoming of increasingand critical importance for preventing loss due to theft or other disasters. Spectralimaging technologies also provide the ability to capture information from burnt and waterdamaged collection materials in instances where at first glance it appears all contentknowledge has been lost from the damaged Library item.

Advances in technology and digital access have improved utilization and interpretation ofscientific analyses for cultural heritage and humanities studies. Integrating scientific andcuratorial knowledge (such as the move from STEM - science, technology, engineeringand mathematics - to STEAM - science, technology, engineering arts and mathematics) isa critical multidisciplinary approach. The concept of open and linked data is imperativefor analysis and integration of large and disparate data sets, of particular interest as weconsider connecting separated library collections through digital data. One example ofadded value from captured data providing access to fragile historic documents, includeslinking the 1507 Waldseemüller World Map and 1513 Ptolemy Geographia to the sameprinting location in Europe. “Scriptospatial”refers to a visualization interface and approachfor linking related data; a global information system approach for documents, creatingan interactive interface for scholars and scientists to engage with object data. Viewingdigital cultural materials in multiple dimensions applies an archaeological approach,uncovering and interconnecting information strata of unique documents. Utilizing anobject-oriented approach in conjunction with the data layer allows mapping of spatialand temporal data with increasing complexity for direct sharing and visualization of data.This scriptospatial concept enhances the ability to support cross-disciplinary researchcollaborations. These relationships support valuable and innovative creative approachesto preserving Library collections, linking analog and digital collection information anddata integration, while strengthening effective Library collaborations for preservation ofloss from our world’s rich library collections. 39



September 10, 14.55 – 15.20

How to we preserve and share our digital library information?

Mike Toth

Washington, US

Integrating complex sets of digital images and hosting them on the Web for a broad setof global users poses a complex set of challenges for storing and sharing digitalinformation: How do we preserve digital products as a digital repository for years tocome for research and study? Data must be stored and distributed to ensure it won’tbe lost from a September 11, 2001 type of catastrophe or simple human error. Earlymanuscripts were preserved on parchment for over 1,000 years by protecting them inlibraries. Libraries using advanced digitization face new obstacles preserving and sharinginformation. These range from St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai and the VaticanLibrary to the US Library of Congress, private libraries and University of Pennsylvania.Wherever they are and whatever culture they represent, each is grappling with thechallenges of preserving digital information for free use by future generations acrosscultures. Each of these libraries are using advanced camera systems to capture high-resolution images of manuscripts and printed books, many of which contain high-resolution illuminations to reveal detailed artwork. Some institutions, such as UniversityCollege London, are also conducting spectral imaging to reveal information withoutdamaging text and artwork – including the earliest works of Archimedes, Galen,Livingstone, Jefferson and others. These techniques yield large collections of qualitydigital images that must be effectively managed and preserved. With more maturetechnology and efficient work processes across more libraries, institutions can produce,store and share standardized metadata and data so that scholars, conservators andusers can glean new information from the data. Now free and open access tostandardized digital library data is helping ensure its propagation on Internet serversaround the globe so the data will not become obsolete on an aging disk or lost in thecrash of a server system.

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Oral presentation session 4 :

Preservation, Imaging & Collection Care

September 10, 15.40 – 16.05

Imaging Endangered Books. Timbuktu Manuscripts in Focus

Lieve Watteeuw

KU Leuven, Belgium

Books are fragile and vulnerable artefacts. Paper and parchment can undergo imposingand quick transformations under influence of heat, fire, moisture and neglect. Damageand destruction of books is drastic and occasionally irreversible. During the KU LeuvenIlluminare RICH project, in 2015, African documents from the Mama Haidara MemorialLibrary from Timbuktu, 11th to the 18th century were imaged with photometric stereo,documenting in detail the fragility of paper, leather, inks and pigments. The paper willpresent a new documentation tool for condition assessment and conservation monitoringof fragile and unique manuscripts.

The microdome digitizing with omnimulti-directional lighting and export the result to 2D+.The technique is based on photometric stereo, a technique of imaging and interactivelydisplaying objects under varying lighting conditions to reveal surface phenomena. Themodule is a hemi-spherical structure with a single downward looking video camera (28million pixels). The object to be captured ( maximum 180 to 120 mm) lies in the centerand is illuminated from computer-controllable lighting directions, through the subsequentactivation of multiple white LEDs. The different angles that illuminate the surface of theartifacts are revealing extreme details. Special attention is taken to produce raking light,the illumination of the artifact at an oblique angle or almost parallel to the surface, toprovides information on the surface topography of the paper, parchment and inkstructure of the paper folio’s or stamped book cover (parchment or leather). For eachillumination an image is taken by the overhead camera, in total 220 images for eachobject. After processing these 220 images, filters in de visualization system areincorporated in the software. Fine details can be highlighted by the use of specific digitalfilters, bringing out structures that would not be visible under single illumination ( likeshade, contrast, sharpening and sketch filters).

The paper will discuss the possibilities of the Microdome to visualize African and Westerndamaged paper, parchment & bookbindings. The interactive data are supporting thedescription and the typology of their damage. Interdisciplinary research in art-technicalvisualization, documentation and conservation treatment using 2D+ topographical imagescan support in an innovating way the knowledge of these extremely fragile and importantheritage documents.

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September 10, 16.05 – 16.30

The Repercussions of a Historic Library Fire - A Multidisciplinary Approach to Treating Fire-Damaged Parchment from the Cotton Collection

Paul Garside

British Library, London, UK

Close collaboration between conservators, conservation scientists and imaging scientistscan not only improve the understanding and care of damaged manuscripts, but alsoallow an unprecedented recovery of information, as illustrated by work on fire-damageditems from the Cotton Collection:

The Cotton Collection is one of the British Library's ‘foundation collections’ and alsorepresents the single greatest known resource of literature in Old and Middle English. Itscare and conservation, therefore, is vital to allow access to scholars and to ensure itssurvival for future generations. The collection was assembled by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton(1571-1631), and includes the Lindisfarne Gospels, two contemporary examples of MagnaCarta and the unique manuscript of ‘Beowulf’. In 1731, a fire at Ashburnham House,Westminster, destroyed or damaged a quarter of the manuscripts, and was exacerbatedby unskilled emergency conservation; this included charring, heat distortion,discolouration, water damage, inappropriate drying, excision of burnt and glutinousmaterial, and incorrect reassembly of disbound volumes leading to loss of codicologicalhistory. The damaged manuscripts included Beowulf and one of the Magna Cartamanuscripts. Further damage occurred in the 19th century from attempts to flattendistorted parchment and the use of chemical washes to separate fused leaves andrecover lost text, and through another smaller fire in 1865. By the late 20th century,much of the damaged part of the collection was still found as leaves, fragments andburnt lumps of vellum, many of which were inlaid and eventually sewn into inerttransparent sleeves to facilitate their use.

Working with the curator, a survey of the burnt volumes was carried out in 2008, toassess the condition of the manuscripts and identify those items which needed to bewithdrawn from circulation due to damage and fragility. Subsequently, this has informedfurther work on aspects of the collection, combining the disciplines of conservation,conservation science and analytical imaging. This collaborative and wide rangingapproach has enabled the greatest advantage to be derived from individual areas ofexpertise, and significant outcomes have included: the development of novel survey andassessment methods, allowing a better understanding of the collection and its suitabilityfor use; a greater appreciation of this type of fire damage through the preparation ofsurrogate parchment objects, which were then subjected to controlled burning; theassessment and selection of suitable conservation methods for fire-damaged parchment;the development of methods of instrumental analysis that allow non-invasive, in situassessment of the chemical condition of parchment; the use of analytical imagingtechniques, including multispectral imaging, to recover details of lost and obscured textand other important details. This last technique has enabled a hitherto impossibleexamination of the text of the damaged Magna Carta.

Therefore, it can be seen that with close cooperation between the conservator,conservation scientist and imaging scientist, in consultation with curators, it is possibleto deal with such damaged objects in the most appropriate and sympathetic manner,and to recover many aspects of these manuscripts, either in a physical or virtual form,that were previously thought lost. 42



September 10, 16.30 – 16.55

One way to a nationwide strategy for preservation of our written cultural Heritage

Ursula Hartwieg

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Germany KEK

In August 2011 the Coordination Office for the Preservation of the Written CulturalHeritage (KEK) was developed jointly by federal and state governments, following aninitiative of Culture Minister Bernd Neumann. The KEK was established at the PrussianCultural Heritage Foundation (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz) and based at the BerlinState Library. The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM) andthe Federal State’s Cultural Foundation (KSL) have supported the KEK for over a periodof five years now.

The main objective of the KEK is to develop a Germany-wide strategy for theconservation and preservation of the written cultural heritage. As one basis for thisstrategy, the KEK started two nationwide queries in Germany concerning theinfrastructure of conservation as well as extent and condition of collections in archivesand libraries. The results of these queries offer strong and nationwide data. Anotherbasis is provided by the promotion of innovative, model-like and high-profile conservationprojects in archives and libraries all over the country. Since its foundation the KEK hassupported over 150 projects, which are concerned with the preservation of writtencultural heritage - either by preserving the objects themselves, by generating anawareness of the huge challenges of preservation or by promoting research onfundamental questions of conservation and the development of innovative practices inarchives and libraries. Thus well-equipped the KEK can produce a nationwideconservation strategy that involves detailed recommendations for all responsible levels,be they state, federal or local, the institutions themselves or the expert colleagues.

The implementation of this cross-divisional strategy would not only lead to theacknowledgement, that preservation has to be anchored as a long-term task in order tobe successful and sustainable - even in budgetary planning. It would also ensure futureaccess to Germany’s written cultural heritage.

The political discussion in the following months is not predictable - the strategy has justbeen handed in by the KEK. In September 2015 the lecture would describe the thencurrent situation.

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September 10, 16.55 – 17.20

Emergency plan or paper exercise? Preventing Emergency plans from being just paper exercise.

Emma Dadson

Harwell Restoration, Didcot, UK

The majority of libraries and heritage organisations in the UK now have emergency plansto help maximise the likelihood of preservation of their collections in the event of amajor emergency.

Whilst standards exist which prescribe emergency plan content (e.g. the UK MuseumsAccrediation standard), it is difficult to know how effective these documents will be inthe challenging and dynamic situation of a major incident such as a fire or flood.

The speaker will draw on her experience of project managing incident response andcollections restoration in major incidents (e.g. fires at National Library of Wales, GlasgowSchool of Art) as well as hundreds of smaller incidents, to convey the key aspects whichcontribute to the success, or failure, of plans when implemented.

Key themes will be

Roles and responsibilities

Public relations in emergency situations and managing the challenges of social media

Adapting salvage tactics for different scales of incident to avoid secondary damage -pragmatic and sensitive approaches to incidents regardless of quantity of damaged items

Navigating internal politics of large organisations successfully

The building has been damaged too - dealing with moisture ingress into the buildingfabric effectively

Dynamic health and safety

These lessons can be utilised to improve emergency plans so that salvage operationscan be conducted with maximum efficiency and minimal stress.

Salvage planning at NationalLIbrary o Salvage planningat National LIbrary of Wales

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History & Destruction of Libraries III

September 11, 09.45 – 10.10

Bombs on Books. Rescue, Reconstruction and restitution of German Libraries destroyed by the Allies in World War II

Jan Alessandrini

University of St Andrews, UK

The wartime experiences of German libraries varied drastically, with some able to salvagemost of their rare books and modern acquisitions, while others suffered devastatingdestruction as a consequence of Allied military operations. Books looted with othertrophies of war and (still) dispersed in countries like Poland and Russia crucially continueto have an impact on present day relations between once adversary nations; however,the historical significance of this legacy of war awaits examination. This paper willexamine the administrative and practical procedures undertaken by German libraries torescue and reconstruct their holdings in WWII. By examining the long and complexprocesses of reconstruction and restitution the paper promises to provide answers to thequestion why some libraries were more successful at safeguarding and retrievingevacuated holdings than others, and what effect the issue of ‘lost’ books, that is thedestruction of curated information systems - books, library organisation, architecture,intellectual legacy - has had on German cultural memory since 1945.

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History & Destruction of Libraries III

September 11, 10.10 – 10.35

Life and libraries go on despite destruction. The libraries during the Croatian War 1991-1995

Marica Šapro-Ficovic

Dubrovnik Libraries

During the Homeland War in Croatia, 1991-1995, numerous cities were attacked andtheir cultural institutions were damaged or destroyed. Even under siege conditions andconstant shelling, life in them somehow went on, and libraries were an importantcommunity resource and site of resistance. The purpose of this study is to present anoral history of the work and the use of libraries in towns under siege during theHomeland War. Ten cities under siege throughout the country, involving 14 libraries, wereincluded in the study: Dubrovnik, Šibenik, Zadar, Gospić, Karlovac, Sisak, Slavonski Brod,Osijek, Vinkovci and Vukovar. Some of these towns were under total siege for a longperiod, others were under partial siege but regularly attacked, shelled and bombarded. Inmany towns libraries were seriously damaged, or even destroyed : the city library inVinkovci and library of the InteruniversityCenter in Dubrovnik were burned down; one city(Vukovar) was totally leveled, library included, public libraries in Slavonski Brod, Karlovac,Zadar, Gospić and other towns were seriously damaged. Despite difficult and oftendangerous conditions, libraries in all town remained open to the public and continued toprovide services. Fifty librarians and seventeen users from those cities, witnesses of thattime, were interviewed and provided eye-witness accounts as well as their reflectionsabout the events and the role of library services under siege. Altogether, there weresome 54 hours of interviews, with some 435,000 words when transcribed. The qualitativemethods of grounded theory were used for analysis of collected interviews. The notion ofsocial capital was used in interpreting results and for general valuation of libraries.Results show that in some towns libraries were the only cultural institutions that werefully functioning in their communities at the time. Libraries were not well prepared topreserve valuable and unique parts of collections. Nor did they have bomb shelters forusers and librarians for unexpected attacks and bombardments. Libraries provided userservices throughout the siege. Most librarians stayed in their communities and worked inlibraries for a variety of reasons: job security - not to lose their job, professionalobligation, feeling of duty, pride, and sense of resistance. The number of users increasedduring the siege, as did the borrowing of books. Users took books to shelters andsoldiers to the front. Most of the books borrowed were light fiction, thrillers and actionbooks, although a number of users went again through classics. Libraries also were usedfor events, such as exhibits. A sense of close belonging and camaraderie developed.Librarians sometimes dressed up and prettied themselves in hard moments as sign ofdefiance. A number of tragic instances were reported - loss of colleagues and childrenof friends and neighbors. There were also reports of miraculous instances of stayingalive when bombs and grenades hit nearby. This study contributes evidence about thesocial role and value of libraries, and suggests a larger role for culture and narrative insurviving atrocity. Extensive examples and quotes from results are presented in the paper.

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Social & Cultural Impact of Libraries

September 11, 11.25 – 11.50

There’s more than one way to lose a library. Archival Collection Development and the History of Women.

Jane Maxwell

Trinity College Library Dublin, Ireland

This proposal can be expressed by the question ‘What do we lose when we fail to buildan inclusive manuscripts and archives library?’

Ireland’s recorded heritage does not adequately reflect the experiences and activities ofmore than half of its population - women. As we emerge from of centuries ofhistoriographical tradition that focussed on war and politics - still preferred subjects -our archives and libraries are poorly furnished with evidence of women’s lives.

There are a number of reasons for the paucity of records for the history of women -beginning with delayed access to literacy and continuing with ongoing inequality inpresent day power-sharing in all its forms. To what extent is this discrepancy continuingand to what extent are heritage institutions colluding with the process?

Archives repositories, like other cultural institutions reflect the societies they serve. But itis no longer acceptable to posit the cultural institution as a passive collector, that is,merely as receivers of what society has deemed sufficiently important to preserve.Curators and archivists are now fully aware of their role in actively shaping the canonthrough the process of archival appraisal and through collection development strategies.

It may be helpful, in identifying the impact of the repositories’ decisions in this regard, toally it with the impact of the economic recession. It is generally accepted that theeconomic downturn affects different communities differently. The sad fact is that itimpacts women more than men, poor people more than rich. So too in libraries andarchives; finding their resources diminished they begin to act conservatively; theircollecting actions are restricted to strengthening ‘what we already have’. However, ‘whatwe already have’ usually means traditional i.e. male subjects and authors.

Even where other, more diverse kinds of material are offered as a donation the Librarymay feel itself to be in a position where cannot accept the material without alsoidentifying funding to pay for its cataloguing. But the materials of lesser-known authors,and of ‘peripheral’ subjects, will not be those which will be accepted as likely candidatesfor a fundraising campaign to cover this cost. Such campaigns work best when there isan element of ‘brand recognition’ about them, when there is an opportunity to attractintending donors who will be most interested in associating themselves with a well-knownauthor or major historical subject.

These are not the only circumstances where Library collection development activities mayneed scrutiny. Some national repositories identify and contact individuals likely to be offuture research interest, offering them IT advice to make sure that their archives presentfewer difficulties should they be accessioned in the future. Care must be taken that oldprejudices are not entrenched in such cases.

The arguments behind this proposal are similar to those about the pros and cons ofpolitical gender quotas. There is no easy answer; however national heritage institutionsare required to acknowledge the discourse and the fact that their collecting strategiescould be interpreted as being discriminatory. 48


Social & Cultural Impact of Libraries

September 11, 11.50 – 12.15

Saving cultural heritage : increasing people’s resilience

Christophe Jacobs

Blue Shield, France

The latest international Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030) adopted inSendai endorsed the fact that it is crucial to include cultural heritage issues in riskprevention and disaster preparedness. A new step forward. Blue Shield and its partnersare aiming to raise awareness on the importance of rescuing damaged cultural heritagein case of conflicts as well as natural disasters. Since quite 20 years now, consistently,they are improving heritage professionals’ culture of risk and convincing both public andstackeholders to protect and protect our heritage from new disasters.

Increasing heritage institutions’ resilience is a keypoint to be able to increase people’sresilience. Giving an overview of Blue Shield’s network and activities, we will show how wenow are adapting our strategy to ensure intergenerational transmission of a commonheritage, to keep this unbreakable link between generations alive. Improving institutionalresilience means being well prepared, but also to be able to rescue what coulddefinitively be lost.

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Digital Libraries

September 11, 09.00 – 09.25

Digital libraries, digital law? A tale of copyright challenges and chances

Vicky Breemen

Institute for Information Law (IViR), Amsterdam, Nl

Following the rise of the networked public information environment, the position oflibraries is changing, both functionally and legally. Functionally, because most functionscurrently have a digital component; and legally, because it is no longer clear whetherthe library exceptions in copyright law extend to digital library activities. So although thedigital domain offers opportunities for libraries, online access to the collection remains athorny issue and as a result, copyright constitutes one of the main obstacles for digitallibrary activities.

But where has this tension between copyright and libraries come from? Have theytraditionally not served shared goals in the organization and dissemination ofinformation, furthering free speech and culture? This paper aims to reflect on the existingtension. To that end, the paper intends to explore the traditional functions of bothcopyright and libraries - what can we learn from a foundational perspective? - as well asthe current discussions on both the role of libraries and copyright in the informationsociety -what are libraries actually allowed to do in the digital domain, and what shouldthey be allowed?

To answer these questions, the paper aims to develop the discussion along two mainthreads. First, the paper will argue that the tension was not always there, but hasintensified as a result of technological developments and digitization. Second, the paperwill critically assess the current copyright exceptions for libraries. These exceptions mayfacilitate a balance of interests, but illustrated with recent copyright cases on Europeanand national level, the paper will conclude that their scope is limited and unclear.Should the exceptions be extended to the digital domain and how? Are such exceptionsstill justified in the networked public information environment, where new actors mayperform similar functions, information is not scarce anymore and libraries are maybe nolonger the sole authorities they used to be?

In sum, this paper aims to discuss library functioning from a copyright perspective andwill specifically address the legal issues with regard to accessing, copying, distributingand adapting digital collections and reflect on how the current tension between copyrightlaw and libraries can be informed by historical and foundational perspectives.

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Digital Libraries

September 11, 9.25 – 9.50

War, division and digital reunification. What do the Omont Collection and the Lecture Notes kept at the University Library of Leuven have in

common?

An Smets

KU Leuven, Belgium

2014: several countries are organizing activities to commemorate the start of the firstWorld War. In Belgium, a lot of attention goes to the “sack of Louvain”in August 1914.The German troops set fire to several buildings in the city centre, among them theUniversity Library. The entire collection was destroyed and the international reaction wasvery severe. Three other important events mark the history of the University Library inthe 20th century: (1) the construction of a new library building and the reconstruction ofthe collection, (2) the destruction of a large part of the collection (and of the newbuilding) at the start of the second World War, followed - again - by a reconstruction ofthe collection, and (3) the division of the collection between Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve at the end of the 1960’s.

Now, almost 50 years after this division, it is time to look back to see what theconsequences were for the heritage collection, and - at the same time - to look at thefuture. This analysis concentrates on two important collections: the Omont collection andthe lecture notes. The collection of Henri Omont, former curator of manuscripts at theBibliothèque nationale de France, was bought in 1948 and constituted the starting pointof the actual reference collection of the special collections department. On the otherhand, the lecture notes are one of the few domains for which acquisitions are still goingon, as they are testimonies of the history of our university. Both collections were split upwhen the French speaking section of the university moved to Louvain-la-Neuve. Today,there are good relationships between the ‘sister universities’ KU Leuven and UCL andthere exist several projects where both universities collaborate. Concerning the heritagecollections, a new project started in 2015, to digitize and present on the same platformall lectures notes till 1799, kept in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve. There are also plans todigitize the Omont fragments kept at the UCL, and to present them together with thoseof the KU Leuven, already available online. The digital possibilities of the 21st centurythus offer answers to some problematic situations created in the 20th century.Furthermore, by combining thoughts on the past and the future of the heritagecollection, this paper also build a bridge between the two main topics of this conference.

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Digital Libraries

September 11, 9.50 – 10.15

An instrument of democracy. Libraries in a changing world

Robert Nouwen

Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium

On August 25, 1914, the German army deliberately burned the university's library ofLeuven along with 300,000 medieval books and manuscripts. On January 28, 2013,Islamist rebels set the library of Timbuktu with thousands ancient manuscripts on fire.Many books of this library were about Islam. On January 9, 2015, the attack on CharlieHebdo in Paris shocked the world. It was seen as an assault on free speech. Thousandsof people marched in Paris to defend democracy and freedom of expression. Meanwhilethe Flemish Government discharges the municipalities of the obligation to organizelibraries.

In all the discussions during the last weeks, nearly no one established clearly therelation between the democratic right of free expression and the importance of libraries,both the large and the small, as sources of knowledge and opinions. One of thecharacteristics of totalitarian ideologies and regimes is the destruction of problematicinformation and limiting free speech through control of the written culture. In ourchanging world, we are convinced that we have full access to all information thanks tothe Internet. But we often forget that this information is particularly superficial and at thesame time easy to manipulate. Within this context, the meaning of a library, especially anational heritage library such as the Royal Library of Belgium, as a repository forintellectual and cultural heritage remains of exceptional importance.

The aim of my contribution is to develop this idea by means of the rich collection ofnewspapers preserved in the Royal Library of Belgium. These newspapers are not meantto be kept and their future is threatened by acidification. To preserve them, they aresystematically digitized. The importance of newspapers lies in the richness of information:political, ideological, economic, social, cultural, and so on. Newspapers not only provideinformation, but also offer a contemporaneous interpretation and comment upon events.And because of this they also outline the history of (or the absence of) freedom ofspeech. So, our archive of newspaper helps critical citizens to inform themselves aboutthe contemporary history, just like literature, philosophical or historical books, and so on.

What do we lose when we lose our libraries? We lose an instrument of democracy! Ademocracy needs cultural and intellectual education. Cultural education is focused onpersonal and social development, on raising awareness, on acquiring the competenceand willingness to participate in social life. From a social point of view the importance ofcultural education cannot be underestimated. Cultural education shapes our identity andmakes us democratic beings. This being said, we must define libraries, as well asarchives, as repositories of heritage and knowledge, as institutions which form the basisfor a healthy democracy. So, I am convinced that in addition to scientific research oneof the most important tasks for the educational activities of the KBR is in particular theenhancement of cultural competence that everyone needs to be able to participate as acritical citizen in public life.

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Case studies on destruction & digital reunification

September 11, 11.00 – 11.25

“A library life, most pleasant and sweet” On the essence of Libraries

Per Cullhed

Uppsala University Library, Sweden

'It is the establishment's own spirit that shall enliven the spirit of an enquiring mind;encourage it through a tempting availability, and provide a library life most pleasant andsweet'

These are the concluding words in the chapter on the library in J. P. Tollstorp'Beskrifning öfver Linköping' (Description of Linköping) from 1834. The author has justdescribed the oldest collections of what now forms the city library of Linköping, a churchand University City 200 km south of Stockholm, Sweden.

This library burned in 1996, due to an arson attack. Most of the library building waslost, the modern collections and the library catalogue disappeared in the disaster. Whenyou lose a library, the values and resources inherent in a library that you have becomeused to have, suddenly disappear. Therefore, destruction is a sad, but very valid startingpoint to a discussion on library values. This paper will say something on each of thefollowing: on the loss of order, information and place, and the loss of the unique. It willargue that all of these losses are part of a larger symbolic value of the library as acommonly shared, and valued, reliable source for a knowledge that combine the pastwith the development of a common future.

Fire is rapid change, but libraries are constantly changing and in the current fast shift ofthe role of libraries, the symbolic and topical aspects are becoming increasinglyimportant and will be dealt with.

Libraries change from organizations for the handling of physical objects and lendingbooks to becoming publishers in their own right, where they have to be able to handledigital production and digital content management. As if this would not be enough interms of rapid shifts, libraries also need to take a step forward to see that the digitalassets become used and more available. The process of extracting digital informationfrom the new born and still shaky digital repositories, processing it and eventually re-ingesting it can be called a digital circulation which may impact both society and librarypractices.

The principle of digitisation, however, is not entirely new; in fact it is part of the mosteffective and the most persistent preservation action of all times, the multitude of copiesof the same piece of information. The historical perspective will be compared to newpractices.

As libraries change, so do readers. We witness a change from the reading experience asa result of concentrated reading to the broadening of possibilities in finding quickinformation. Much is gained but what do we risk to lose.

The overall aim of this paper is to use destruction and change as a catalyst foranalyzing the essence of libraries in history and in current library practice. This analysiswill draw upon and demonstrate experiences from a long library career in preservation,library disasters, cultural heritage, library history, digital practices and challenges. 53

The remains of a burned boo The remains of a burned book

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Case studies on destruction & digital reunification

September 11, 11.25 – 11.50

What happened to the library of Public Administration (MPA) and Business Administration (MBA) of Sana’a University in Yemen?

Assessment of a New Digital Library at Sana’a University in Yemen

Trudi Noordermeer

University of Antwerp, Belgium

In February 2015 the elected president of Yemen and his staff had to leave the capitalSana’a and they fled to Aden. It was the climax of the instable political situation inYemen. The remaining ambesees closed their doors and they evacuated their staff.Businesses collapsed, both in the larger cities but also in the tribal areas in the desert.

This article tries to find out what happened to the (digital) library of the executivedegree programme of MPA which was established in 2006 in Sana’a University. Thislibrary was part of the executive MPA programme in which Leiden University and Sana’aUniversity cooperated with the Worldbank and several NGO’s and institutes for publicadministration and higher education. The project was called YIPA!, Yemen Institute forPublic Administration. It was implemented in the context of the public administrationrestructuring process of the government of Yemen. The objective was the developmentand implementation of a human resource strategy on civil service training and retraining.YIPA! had to deliver a viable Executive MPA programme at Sana’a University and theestablishment of a renewed Institute of Administrative Sciences (NIAS) in charge of thehuman resource training within the government structures at central, regional and locallevel. Cooperation with Leiden University was confirmed by acceptance of PhD graduates.

To support these objectives the establishment of a (digital) library and documentationcenter in Sana’a University was realized in 2006.

For the collection development a a few thousand new books in English and Arabic werebought via Blackwell and the Cairo International Bookfair. Sana’a University couldn’tafford the expensive electronic journals and bibliographic and full text databases andtherefore the AGORA and Hinari programs could give access to a selection of importantjournals. Open Access journals and institutional repositories of other universities becameaccessible. Sana’a University developed a wireless Internet infrastructure. The soil consistsmainly of rocks and it is difficult to put in wires.

The LibSys 2.0 integrated library system, which was recently acquired by Sana’aUniversity was implemented. This state-of-the art system was developed in the Palestineterritories and it was bilingual, Arabic and English. It has all the features for acquisition,cataloguing, OPAC and lending administration, barcodes and even RFID.

The library staff received training how to use LibSys 2.0 and the Internet. They startedcataloguing the back sets and the newly arrived acquisitions. A basic training programinformation skills for students was delivered.

The reading room and the library space was restructures and new furniture was boughtin Yemen. Safety gates by 3M could be acquired in Saudi Arabia.

The working processes and the cooperation with the Central Library was reorganized.

This article describes the situation in the library in Spring 2015 as detailed as possibleand it tries to assess the impact of the library. How useful was it to organize thislibrary? Can an overview of the library statistics since 2006 be given? How manystudents graduated?

To sum up, what do we actually lose when we lose this library?55

Closing lecture

September 11, 15.00 – 15.20

IFLA's work to safeguard written heritage Round Table

Julia Brungs

International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) A Risk Register for Documentary Heritage

The protection and preservation of documentary heritage has always been one of IFLA’score objectives and the ongoing need for this has become ever clearer throughoutrecent decades. In order to help and further international efforts to safeguardendangered heritage, IFLA has created a Risk Register for documentary heritage tocomplement our extensive cultural heritage work.. Organisations such as the Blue Shield,of which IFLA is a founding member, and UNESCO are actively engaged in thesafeguarding of heritage. IFLA’s cultural heritage work, and especially the Risk Register,supports the ongoing work of these organisations. The presentation will give an overviewof IFLA’s cultural heritage work, how the Risk Register is used and how IFLA’sengagement feeds into the internationally coordinated activities to safeguard culturalheritage.

Julia Brungs is Policy and Projects Officer at the International Federation of LibraryAssociations and Institutions (IFLA). Her focus is cultural heritage including IFLA’sworldwide Preservation and Conservation Centres, the establishment of a risk register fordocumentary heritage and work on the UNESCO PERSIST project. She also works closelywith the Blue Shield and UNESCO on behalf of IFLA.

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Poster 1

Conservation after disaster: The case of the burnt documents of the Arquivo Histórico do Museu Bocage

Elaine Costa, Maria da Conceição Casanova, Marta C. Lourenço, Maria João Melo

Universidade Nova de Lisboa, MONTE DA CAPARICA, Portugal

In this paper we present the case study of the surviving records of the Arquivo Históricodo Museu Bocage (AHMB), affected by a huge fire in 1978 and today kept in theNational Museum of Natural History and Science (MUHNAC) [1]. This unique scientificarchive, containing irreplaceable data about the natural history of the Portuguese formercolonies, justifies the implementation of a research strategy. The main aim of thisresearch is to examine the possibility of applying a non-destructive and non-invasivetechnique, such as the volumetric scanning [2], to the burnt paper compact blocks, forinformation retrieval. Great contrast between the paper support and the ink medium isneeded for digital imaging. We assume that the ink composition and the paper supportare sufficiently dissimilar materials, in chemical terms, to present enough contrast byvolumetric scanning. Thus, to evaluate the possibility of implementing the technique a fullmaterials characterization of the collection will be performed and results presented, bymeans of complementary techniques, such as micro EDXRF (Energy DispersiveSpectroscopy of X-ray Fluorescence), Raman microscopy and Micro FTIR (FourierTransform Infrared Spectroscopy) analysis, for medium characterization and paperadditives characterization. Inks composition identification may also justify the applicationof complementary separation methods, such as LC-MS (liquid chromatography-massspectrometry) and GC-MS (gas chromatography-mass spectrometry). Furthermore,assessing the full conservation condition of the surviving records of AHMB and proposea conservation/restoration treatment is other objective to try to recover as much aspossible of the original physical support. A state of art will be presented and differentmethods compared. Selected conservation/restoration techniques evolving friabledocuments separation by facing methods and controlled humidification, will be tried topropose a conservation protocol for the treatment of fire damaged collections. We alsoacknowledge that it is possible to develop an efficient method for support and mediumlong term conservation, applied according to the needs of each individual document.Finally, a general description of the surviving collections is also done, the historicalarchive of the MUHNAC consulted and oral interviews done, to understand the historicalbackground of the case study and its relation to other collections affected by the fire.

57

One of the manuscripts showing the extension of the damag Figure 1.One of the manuscripts showing the extension of the damage

Poster 2

Ecclesiastical Libraries of Early Modern Portugal: Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction

Luana Giurgevich

This work examines library culture in Early Modern Portugal. The national network ofknowledge was molded on the impressive collections of books held by religiousinstitutions. Strategies employed by ecclesiastical libraries to purchase and select booksdetermined the book market and created a very distinctive cultural structure. Part 1 ofthis poster considers the formation and evolution of early modern ecclesiastical librariesuntil their definitive suppression in 1834 (Construction). Part 2 focuses on thesecularization movement, lasting almost a century and beginning with the expulsion ofthe Jesuits in 1759. Only in exceptional circumstances did religious institutions keepintact their collections: over 400 libraries disappeared during the development ofsecularization (Destruction). Fortunately, this destructive process had a hidden benefit:during the library confiscations (and also before them) the Portuguese governmentundertook regular and systematic cataloguing of ecclesiastical library holdings. Finally,Part 3 uses the inventories and catalogues produced during the dissolution to historicallyreconstruct these "lost libraries" (Reconstruction). This work presents the results of a full-scale research project based on new archival work (approximately 1 000 catalogues andinventories), to be published in the book Clavis bibliothecarum. Catálogos e inventáriosde livrarias de instituições religiosas em Portugal até 1834, coauthored with HenriqueLeitão (Lisbon, forthcoming 2015).

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Poster 3

Providing Access to Digital Materials Across Multiple Platforms

Ryder Kouba

American University in Cairo, CAIRO, Egypt

Digital libraries are a key component in fulfilling Rare Books and Special CollectionsLibrary (RBSCL) at the American University in Cairo’s (AUC) mission to document andmake accessible the history of AUC, Cairo, and Egypt. However, due to AUC’s uniqueposition as an English language institution in Egypt, the difficulty for most users to visitour reading room, and the political uncertainty in the country, we face unique challengesand opportunities in providing access and making our materials useful to a wide varietyof users.

RBSCL provides access to materials through a variety of platforms; our DSpaceinstitutional repository, our CONTENTdm digital library, our web archives account withArchive-It, and born-digital materials that are only available in the reading room. Whileeach platform has its own strengths, we face the challenge of linking similar materialtogether. For example, many academic departments have material in all three in additionto physical papers. Our current solution to this challenge is creating finding aids withArchivesSpace to describe and link to material across systems and with physicalholdings. This problem is particularly acute with our web archives, since information anddocuments that previously were documents are now only available on the web. Is itnecessary to link to each department website from the finding aid, or is a general linkand a general scope and contents note enough for users?

An additional challenge is the language of both the content and our descriptivemetadata. Most notably, the University on the Square project has been important fordocumenting the Egyptian Revolution through the collection of web sites (using Archive-It), digital photographs, and physical materials such as posters, banners, and otherephemera. As a result, 13,000 digital photographs have been collected as well as 3.3terabytes of web content. Most banners are in Arabic, severely limiting their accessibilityto both English-speaking users and staff members. Since AUC is an English languageuniversity, we provide translations of text in our Digital Library; while this step involvesmore work for our staff, we believe the increased usability is worth the extra step toallow users from around the world to view images of the Arab Spring in Egypt.

Lastly, the volatile political situation, and our attempts to capture as much informationbeing produced about it as possible, has forced us to think about privacy. Whatprocedures should we have for making captured sites the government has shut downpublicly available? What about interviews that were conducted under very differentpolitical circumstances? While preserving material from destruction is paramount, it isalso necessary to provide access, which has its own challenges.

Our digital repositories have enabled users from around the world to access ourholdings; however, much work in integrating different platforms according to archivalprinciples remains. I’m looking forward to presenting in Leuven the work that’s beingdone at AUC to preserve and make accessible materials as well as receiving valuablefeedback and learning from colleagues around the world who are dealing with similarissues.

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Poster 4

Digital Access to Knowledge Sources Without Copyright Holders' Consent

Alain Souto Rémy, Juliana Buse de Oliveira

University of International Integration of African-Brazilian Lusophony (UNILAB), REDENÇÃO, Brazil

Federal University of Ceará (UFC), FORTALEZA, Brazil

The creation of digital libraries solves many problems and has many benefits, specially inregards to both accessibility and preservation of its collections. But the great majority ofcurrent digital libraries are either constituted solely of public domain and/or creativecommons licensed contents or, when they have copyrighted materials, characterized bypaid or otherwise severely restricted access. Since those two first kinds of contents arenot sufficient if one assumes the need for an extensive and widespread access toknowledge, it is necessary to assess if and on what grounds it is possible to (digitize, ifneeded, and then) provide access to copyrighted materials regardless of copyrightholders’ consent. Such is precisely the object of this communication: the legal issuesrelating to initiatives towards filling what seems to be probably the last and hardest gapin digital libraries contents. As in any legal analysis, one must focus on a particular legalscenario, since law is a localized phenomenon. Thus Brazil will be the case studied,addressing both national and international applicable rules regarding copyright limitationsand rights of access to information or knowledge and other related regulations, speciallythe Law No. 9.610/1998 and its amendments, known as the Copyright Act. Its shallowlimitations to copyright will be duly commented and a particular hypothesis of legaluniversal digitization and access will be identified and presented, concerning thereproduction of literary, artistic or scientific works for enabling access to visuallyimpaired readers.

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Poster 5

Establishing the need for conservation and restoration disciplines:

Juliana Buse de Oliveira, Joana Branco Morais

Federal University of Ceará, FORTALEZA - CE, Brazil

New University of Lisbon, LISBON, Portugal

This communication discusses the training of the professionals responsible for managinglibraries and collections and proposes the need for such training to include contentsthat enables them to properly identify risk factors threatening bibliographic heritage andtherefore to prevent damage. Such formation, if solid, will provide the critical theoreticalknowledge and the technical and instrumental skills for library collections to be bestpreserved, as we will have professionals able to permanently assess potential threatsand, if necessary, perform preliminary diagnoses, from the acquired familiarity withevidences and symptoms. However, it is also important that they recognize the limits ofa non-specialist’s acting and realize the need to summon experts’ intervention. Thecontent of such training includes knowledge on appropriate environmental conditions;best practices on conditioning, keeping and exhibition; symptoms of biological, chemicaland physico-mechanical degradation agents’ action; and secondary training of collectionsend users. This discussion covers both undergraduate and graduate courses, as differentcountries have different ways of training the various professionals responsible formanaging libraries and book collections. Teaching other professionals the importance ofsafeguarding our documentary heritage, but one must also learn how to do it. Theapproach and the assessment of such issues constitute a sine qua non for libraries toperform well their historical role of keeping and spreading heritage.

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Recital on the carillon of the University Library

By Luc Rombouts, University CarillonneurFriday September 11, 1.30 pm – 2.30 pm

‘The Broken Bells of Flanders’: Music of War and Peace

1. Second Suite for Carillon ‘The Bells’ Robert Kleinschmidt- Silver Bells (‘Hear the sledges with their bells’)- Golden Bells (‘Hear the mellow wedding bells’)- Brazen Bells (‘Hear the wild alarum bells’)- Iron Bells (‘Hear the tolling of the bells’)

2. St. Louis Blues (1914) William C. Handy

3. Carillon, op. 75 (1914) Edward Elgar

4. Songs of warfare

a) It’s a Long Way to Tipperary (1912) Jack Judge

b) Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag (1915) Felix Powell

e) When the Peace Bells Ring (1915) Clarence Lyndon

5. Memorial Chimes (1922) Edward Elgar

6. Songs of reluctance and nostalgia

a) I didn’t Raise my Boy to Be a Soldier (1915) Al Piantadosi

b) Roses of Picardy (1916) Hayden Wood

c) The Soldier’s Farewell (1915) Louis Weber

7. Thaxted (‘I vow to Thee, my Country’; Theme From Jupiter) (1916/1921) Gustav Holst

8. Two songs after the poem of John McCrae (1915)

a) In Flanders Fields John Philip Sousa

b) In Flanders Fields

9. Carillon Prelude to ‘The Sack of Louvain’ (2014) Piet Swerts

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During the First World War, 13 Belgian carillons were destroyed by the terror of war or robbed by the German army – among them the Leuven city carillon. The fate of these instruments inspired writers in England, France and North America to praise the singing towers of Brave Little Belgium and to mourn about their downfall. The war appeared to be a step stone in the international development of this typical Belgian art form, since after armistice, memorial carillons were erected in the USA, Canada, England, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The carillon of the Leuven University Library (1928) was a gift from the American engineers in order to commemorate their colleagues who fell in the war. With 63 bells and a total weight of 35 tons, it is one of the prominent carillons in the world.

Most works played during this recital have a direct link to the First World War. They offer a surprising variation in atmospheres: pre-war Blues sounds, rhetoric heroism, excessive romanticism and elegiac sounds for the dead. The concert starts with a carillon work that illustrates the various atmospheres that bells can evoke.

Luc Rombouts has been University Carillonneur of Leuven since 1991. In 2014 he published Singing Bronze. A History of Carillon Music (Leuven University Press), which is acknowledged as a reference work about the history of this typical Belgian music instrument.

The best place to enjoy the carillon music is the open-air theatre in the garden of the Faculty of Arts (100 meters from the backside of the library).

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University hall (Naamsestraat 22)o Jubilee Hall: registration

desk, coffee breaks, lunches, poster presentations, opening reception

o Promotion Hall: Opening lectures, keynote lectures, public lecture, oralpresentations

Maria-Theresia College – MTC (Sint-Michielsstraat 6)Oral presentations, coffee breaks

Faculty Club(Groot Begijnhof 14)Conference dinner

University Library(Ladeuzeplein 21)Lunch, closing lectures andfarewell drink on Friday

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