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Simmons and Harvard to Provide Training, Resources to Iraqi LibrariesThe Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science and the Harvard University library system will launch a joint program in May to help Iraqi librarians and archivists rebuild and modernize library systems that have suffered from two decades of war. The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded the two institutions $100,000 for the two-year project as part of its “Recovering Iraq’s Past” program, which provides funding to rebuild Iraq’s cultural heritage. A team of Simmons faculty and Harvard librarians are scheduled to meet in May in Amman, Jordan, with Iraqi librarians, who will identify the areas in which they need the most training. Simmons educators will then offer the appropriate graduate library courses and work with the Harvard team to oversee a series of special projects and serve as long-term mentors over the Internet. “The United States has some of the best library and information science programs in the world,” Simmons Dean Michele Cloonan said March 4 in announcing the project, “and we’re pleased to be able to bring our training to the Iraqis.” Harvard University Library Director Sidney Verba added that his institution was pleased to “help rebuild the intellectual base of higher education in Iraq.” Project organizers also hope to have Iraqi librarians attend the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions general conference in Oslo, Norway, in August 2005, to rejoin their international colleagues. In related news, a European initiative called the Cultural Emergency Response announced March 3 it has donated 25,000 Euros ($31,000 U.S.) to refurbish the reading room of the University of Baghdad’s Central Library. The CER, jointly administered by the Prince Claus Fund in the Netherlands and the International Committee of the Blue Shield, was established in September 2003 to provide emergency assistance to damaged cultural institutions. Posted March 5, 2004. |
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