What's happening after burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute

What's happening after burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute

Dear all,

I would like to thank all of you for your response to my post on burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute. I really appreciate every message I received about this issue. Today, I would like to share with you a new report by Cybrarians about what's happening after burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute, this report follows up the efforts that started to save the library collections and its restoration. It also has exclusive photos inside the National Library of Egypt where the restoration process is running.

You can access the report at this link: http://bit.ly/uR82Jt .

Best regards


Mahmoud Khalifa
President, Cybrarians: The Arabic Portal for Librarianship and Information
M.A., Information Science, Cairo University
Cel: +2 012 2489 4472
Tel: +2 02 2797 2695
moud@cybrarians.org
http://www.cybrarians.org
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A black day for heritage: burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute

A black day for heritage: burning the Egyptian Scientific Institute

Copyright © 2011 Cybrarians : the arabic portal for librarianship & information science. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011

Cairo, Egypt 

 

 

This day will be marked as "the Black day for Egyptian Heritage". Morning during conflicts between some Egyptian protests, the Egyptian Scientific Institute which established in 1798 by Napolean Bonaparte has been burned. The Egyptian Scientific Institute is the oldest sceintific institute in Egypt and Middle East at all. It has the most rich and rare library in Egypt.

 

The fire started on the lower floors of the building, which is on Qasr al-Aini Street in central Cairo, but later reached the higher floors. The firemen, who arrived very late at the site, could not initially control the fire. Eyewitnesses were reported to have seen protestors throwing a Molotov cocktail at stone-throwing soldiers at the Shura Council building, but the projectile missed the intended target and instead landed in the Egyptian Scientific Institute.

The library contains about 40.000 items of rare books and manuscripts, however it has unvaluable items, like:

•  The original copy of the french book "Description de l'Egypte"  
• Atlas of Old Indian arts.
• German atlas about Egypt and Ethiopia, 1842.
• "Egypt: the mother of the world", 1753.

Professor Mahmoud al-Shernoby, the general secretary of the institute, told state TV in a phone interview that the damage is a “great loss” to Egypt and that those “who caused this disaster showed be punished.” 

Related articles

• The burning of a Library in Egypt and the Philosophy behind it (capitalisthistory.wordpress.com)
• Video Shows Egyptian Soldiers Beating and Shooting at Protesters (thelede.blogs.nytimes.com)
• EGYPT:Cairo protesters set historic library on fire (laaska.wordpress.com)
• How do you know if your Egyptian (wiki.answers.com)
• Deadly unrest continues in Cairo (bbc.co.uk)