Iraq National Library and Archive

History

In the early 1950s, the Baghdad Public Library was situated on Imam al-Adham Street at the north-west corner of the present day Bab al-Mu’azzam Square, where the North Gate of the old walled city used to stand. By that time, it was being referred to informally as the ‘National Library.’ Some discussions between the Iraqi authorities and the British Embassy about a possible exchange of land as a site for a National Library, and with the British Council about the design of the building, were terminated by the 1958 Revolution. Subsequently the new government designated the former Baghdad Public Library as the National Library by a Law (No. 51) passed in 1961.

Although archival collections had accumulated over the centuries, there appears to have been no organisation responsible for them in recent times until action was taken by the University of Baghdad, following a study carried out by an ad hoc committee in 1963. Legislation was passed in 1963 and the National Documents Centre was established by the University in 1964 to collect and conserve official documents. Responsibility for the Centre remained with the University until 1969, when further legislation established the status, aims and objectives of the renamed National Record Office, which became the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture and Information.

By the early 1970s, the National Library building was overcrowded, but it was 1977 before it finally moved into a new purpose-built building. However, the original intentions were frustrated when the government allocated a complete floor to the National Record Office or, as it came to be called, the National Centre for Archives. The National Library and the National Centre for Archives were formally amalgamated in 1987.

As Saddam Hussein came into power in 1979, the INLA began to weaken. One of the causes came from Hussein directing the country’s money towards the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1989). “Political appointees and Ba’ath loyalists directed the INLA under Saddam Hussein, and a budget freeze in 1980 ended all new material acquisitions for the remaining years of Saddam’s regime”. Through the next two decades, many of the notable institutions of Iraq, including INLA, continued to falter, especially in the wake of the 2003 Iraq war.

Iraq War

Due to an iron door having been locked, most of the damage occurred in the main reading room and lobby of the building. “According to Eskander, Saddam loyalists burned the entirety of the Republican Archive, which contained the records of the Ba'athist regime between the years 1958 and 1979. Also completely destroyed were the Ba'athist court proceedings detailing the charges against and trials of party opponents. Records of Iraq's relations with its neighbors, including Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, are missing. Iraq has accused neighbouring countries of stealing sections of its national archives. In addition to these documents, which would have been of great interest to Iraqi citizens as well as to historians, the INLA lost records and documents from the Ottoman reign, the British occupation, the monarchical era, and much more. The destruction or loss of these materials, according to Eskander, did not occur only during the April 2003 attacks”. His entries document the events covering the library and archive’s restoration. By 2007, the center “had already become a safe haven for intellectual activity, fully accessible to the public, with a state-of-the-art computer center”. In addition, there is also a facility for transferring documents to microfilm, a cataloging operation, and a department that locates documents from Iraqi government ministries. Having been a major player in the history of Iraq, the British Library was able to help the reconstruction, by providing microfilm copies of rare books and microfiche copies of documents relating to the administration of Iraq from 1914 to 1921 that were held by the British in India. Despite the fact that five staff members have been killed, along with the library closing for days at a time due to heavy fighting, Eskander says he sees the institution as "an important source of uniting and unifying the country."

References

External links

Category:National libraries Category:National archives Category:Libraries in Iraq Category:Government of Iraq Category:World Digital Library