Post 3: ‘All totally damaged and depleted’

As stated by Royce Wiles in the article by Anne Garner - work on libraries, literacy, and the printing and dissemination of Afghan reading materials must coincide: “You see it all needs to be uplifted since it is all totally damaged and depleted.  It can only be begun everywhere all at the same time”.

Historically libraries in Afghanistan were institutions created by the elite to preserve large collections of religious texts.  It was only as late as the 1930’s that the concept of libraries as centers of public knowledge and information services took root and every government ministry in the Afghan capital of Kabul had its own library with collections of great importance.

These libraries, founded in the 1950’s were hard hit by the Soviet occupation and the subsequent warfare in the years leading to the rise of the Taliban regime in 1996.  Under the Taliban regime 15 of Kabul’s 18 libraries were closed.  In some cities all library books were destroyed.

About 80,000 books were lost in the course of Afghanistan’s civil war under Taliban rule.  Many became sources of heat to fuel stoves during times when wood was scarce, or sold in bazaars at bulk weight to make bags used by shopkeepers to wrap food.

In 2002 it was reported that although the National Library of Afghanistan was still standing its contents had been plundered.

In an article by Abdul Rahin former director of the Kabul University library he explains that although this library served the university, it was also the National Library of Afghanistan and this is the first indication that historically they were one and the same library.  It seems fitting that today the ACKU library housed at the Kabul University campus is now considered the de facto National Library.

Scanning documents at ACKU

I was eager to explore the catalogue of the ACKU as I knew that it is currently digitizing its collection and was hoping that information regarding the historical aspect of Afghan libraries may be found here.  Unfortunately that wasn’t the case but I did come across the World Libraries (a peer reviewed library and information science journal) website with a poignant and informative article about the former Kabul University Library.  Articles appearing in American Libraries sourced via the Swinburne library catalogue have proved fruitful. 

 

 References:

Kniffel, L 2002, Afghanistan Reports reveal Devastated Libraries, American Libraries, vol. 33, no. 3 pp. 22 -23, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, EBSCOhost, viewed 25 September 2011.

Garner, A 2007, 'Rebuilding Afghanistan ... one book at a time', American Libraries, vol. 38, no. 10, pp. 52-54, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, EBSCOhost, viewed 14 September 2011.

Rahin, AR 1998, The situation of Kabul University Library: its past and present, World Libraries, viewed 27 September 2011, <http://www.worlib.org/vol08no2/rahinv8n2.shtml >.

2008, ‘Scanning Afghan Documents at the ACKU’ [image] in stepnout’s photostream, Flickr, viewed 12 September 2011, < http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepnout/2983333882/in/photostream/>.