What do we lose when we lose a library? Proceedings of the conference held at the KU Leuven 9-11 September 2015 Conference organized by KU Leuven - UC Louvain the Goethe Institut - the British Council What do we lose when we lose a library? What do we lose when we lose a library? Proceedings of the conference held at the KU Leuven 9-11 September 2015 Conference organized by KU Leuven, UC Louvain, the Goethe Institut and the British Council Conference Chair: Lieve Watteeuw Proceedings Editor: Mel Collier Published in cooperation with the German Commission for UNESCO German Commission for UNESCO and with the support of the Goethe Institut University Library, KU Leuven 2016 Book design: Friedemann Vervoort Illustration cover: Leuven 1914: the burnt-out great hall of the Old University Library (photo: University Archives of KU Leuven) ISBN 978 94 6165 199 0 D/2016/1869/45 © 2016 by University Library, KU Leuven, Mgr Ladeuzeplein 22, 3000 Leuven, Belgium This publication is published by kind permission of the individual authors with a Creative Commons Licence (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International). Acknowledgements This publication has been generously sponsored by the Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission and the Goethe Institut. We gratefully acknowledge the organizational and financial support and co-operation for the conference of: The Goethe Institut The British Council The KU Leuven The UC Louvain The additional kind sponsorship from: Elsevier Ex Libris LIBISnet And the partnership with: The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin The British Library Cambridge University The Flemish UNESCO Commission in Belgium The Flemish Heritage Library The Flemish Research Council The Embassy of France to Belgium The Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel IFLA Illuminare The Library of Congress Trinity College Dublin The Embassy of the United States of America to Belgium The University of Antwerp Contents About the authors 11 Introductory 15 Editor’s introduction 17 Foreword by Marc Vervenne 19 Foreword by Susanne Höhn 21 The Hydra library: destroy it and you will get two of them … 23 Charles-Henri Nyns The flames of Louvain: a library as a cultural icon and a political vehicle 25 Mark Derez Destruction of libraries 37 Récit du sauvetage des manuscrits de Tombouctou 39 Abdel Kader Haidara Bombs on books: allied destruction of German libraries during World War II 45 Jan L. Alessandrini War and post-war trauma: lessons for cultural heritage today? 55 Claudia Fabian The case of Jesuit libraries in Qing China (17th-18th centuries) 63 Noël Golvers The destruction of the Library of Alexandria as myth and metaphor 69 Colin Higgins What did the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina lose after 25/26th August 1992? 77 Ismet Ov ˇcina 7 Contents Social and cultural impact 83 The burning of books as an assault on cultural memory 85 Aleida Assmann “A library life, most pleasant and sweet”: on the essence of libraries 97 Per Cullhed An instrument of democracy: libraries in a changing world 103 Robert Nouwen Supporting libraries in societies under pressure: the British Council experience from 1934 to 2015 109 Stephan Roman Preservation and digitization of heritage collections 117 The Endangered Archives Programme: a global approach to saving vulnerable material 119 Jody Butterworth On the way to a nationwide strategy for the preservation of our written cultural heritage: the “Koordinierungsstelle für die Erhaltung des schriftlichen Kulturguts” (KEK) 125 Ursula Hartwieg The Sinai Library: a resource of continuing significance 133 Hieromonk Justin of Sinai Books and meanings in worlds of change 141 David McKitterick Lessons from World War II and the Holocaust: What can be done to save cultural heritage and memory during times of war? 153 Laila Hussein Moustafa, Joshua Harris, and Bethany Anderson A virtual Renaissance for the manuscripts of Chartres damaged during World War II 161 Claudia Rabel War, division and digital reunification, or what do the Omont collection and the lecture notes kept at the Leuven University Library have in common? 167 An Smets 8 Contents Digital libraries and imaging research 177 Digital libraries, digital law? A tale of copyright challenges and chances 179 V.E. Breemen Spectral imaging: capturing and retrieving information you didn’t know your library collections contained 189 Fenella G. France The repercussions of a historic library fire: the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach to treating fire-damaged parchment from the Cotton Collection 199 Paul Garside, Mariluz Beltran de Guevara & Christina Duffy How do we preserve and share our digital library information? 207 Michael B. Toth Imaging endangered manuscripts: materials of Timbuktu manuscripts in focus 215 Lieve Watteeuw 9 About the authors Jan L. Alessandrini is the German historian at the Commission for Looted Art in Europe. In 2017 he will publish a monograph based on his doctoral research entitled Laughing All the Way to the Bank: Popular Comic Literature and the Early Modern German Print Industry (1555-1618), and in 2018 Bombs on Books: Rescue, Reconstruction and Restitution of German Libraries Destroyed by the Allies in World War II. Bethany Anderson is an Archival Operations and Reference Specialist in the University Archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also the Reviews Editor for The American Archivist. Aleida Assmann holds the chair of English literature and literary theory at the University of Konstanz and an honorary degree from the University of Oslo. She also holds a Max Plank research award for the establishment of a research group on memory and history (2009-2015). Mariluz Beltran de Guevara is Collection Care Monitoring Conservator in the conservation department of the British Library, with responsibility for the environment of the collection. V.E. (Vicky) Breemen graduated cum laude from the Institute for Information Law’s research master (IViR, University of Amsterdam, 2012). Interested in copyright law, culture & law and freedom of expression, she is currently writing her PhD-thesis at IViR on the relationship between copyright law and libraries. Jody Butterworth has lived in Asia for almost seven years. After returning to London she studied Asian art history and museum studies. In 2012, Jody became the Curator for the Endangered Archives Programme at the British Library—an ideal job as she gets to travel the world from the comfort of her desk at St Pancras. Mel Collier is emeritus professor and retired library director of the KU Leuven, and chairman of the Flemish Heritage Library. He has been professor and library director also in England and the Netherlands and was prominent in library automation and digital library research since the earliest days. Per Cullhed is Strategic Developments Manager at Uppsala University Library, currently working on the library’s future planning for digital collections and digital humanities as well as security. Between 2005-15 he headed the Cultural Heritage Department. He has also been Head of Conservation during which time he took active part in conservation and preservation work connected to disaster management for Swedish libraries, and abroad. Mark Derez is a historian working in the University Archives of the KU Leuven. He publishes on the history of the city and the university, with a particular interest in architecture and the First World War. 11 About the authors Christina Duffy is the imaging scientist of the British Library, and specialises in digital microscopy, multispectral imaging and image processing techniques. Claudia Fabian has worked since 1986 in the Bavarian State Library in Munich, Germany becoming head of the Department of Manuscripts and Early and Rare Printed Books in 2004. She is a member of the IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section and the LIBER Executive Board, chairing the LIBER Forum on Digital Cultural Heritage. Fenella G. France is Chief of the Preservation Research and Testing Division, Library of Congress. She researches non-destructive imaging techniques, and preventing degradation to collections, with a current focus on the development of spectral imaging techniques while increasing integration between scientific and scholarly data. Paul Garside’s role is Conservation Scientist at the British library which encompasses a wide range of analytical work, research and training. Noël Golvers, PhD is a Latinist of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Senior Researcher attached to the Faculty of Arts (Language and regional studies) Abdel Kader Haidara is Director General of the Mamma Haïdara Library and Executive President of ONG SAVAMA-DCI (Protection and valorization of manuscripts for the defence of Islamic culture). He was the coordinator of the secret evacuation of manuscripts from Timbuktu to Bamako when it was occupied by armed groups. He received an honorary doctorate from ENS Lyon and the German prize for Africa. Joshua Harris is head of the Media Preservation Unit in the Department of Preservation and Conservation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ursula Hartwieg completed her doctorate in 1997 under Professor Bernhard Fabian in Münster. Following the library traineeship at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel she took up work at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Since its foundation in 2011 she is head of the Koordinierungsstelle für die Erhaltung des schriftlichen Kulturguts (KEK). Colin Higgins is Librarian at St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge. He