Cairo's Scientific Complex Library

In Cairo, at the end of last year, aggressive protests continued against the ruling military government in an attempt to get them to step down and allow the people to have a civilian based democratic government. The protests had raged for four days before there was an attack that Cairo's Egyptian Scientific Complex was caught in the crossfire. With the death toll already being about 14 people, there had already been a lot of tragedy. The military using the rooves of buildings to gain a high advantage protestors over the protestors, but the enraged citizens still threw stones and firebombs up at the soldiers.

Omar, Mohamed 2011, ‘Insitute in Flames’ [image], in Pictures: Fire Destroys "Temple of Knowledge" in Egypt, National Geographic, viewed 28 May 2012, < http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/459/cache/cairo-institute-library-burns-egypt-outside_45994_600x450.jpg>.

This is how the incident occurred, and thus burning down the Temple of Knowledge and many of the 192,000 materials the library held inside. Most of these items were very highly valuable, both in financial and cultural terms. With materials being of historical document formats, maps and documental photography.  Firemen spent hours putting out the fire, but consequently the water from their hoses caused even more damage to the fragile materials inside. The next day after the burning volunteers garbed in lab coats and gloves, assisted in trying to recover as many of the materials as possible and loaded them onto trucks for repairs. Luckily, some items that were fully destroyed, like the original map of Ethopia, have other copies in other libraries and some items are digitised for people to have full access too.

GHSRMENA 2011, Egypt - 20111217 - Cairo - Youth saves heritage books of scientific complex, delivered them to army, 18 December, viewed 28 May 2012 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5ESpXuO9Zs>.

Even though the building was supposedly caught in the crossfire and thus not a direct act of book burning, the event caused a lot of cultural and historical damage, some of which will not be able to be recovered, which is a tragedy for cultural conservation and for the future learning of people.

Search Strategy:
Due to the recent nature of the event, there were no books on the matter, and as far as I could find, there were no articles on EBSCOhost, so I resorted to using Google and only using material that I felt noteworthy of citing. So I mostly stuck to newspaper and magazine sites that were somewhat known and reputable. I originally came across the story when randomly googling recent book burnings, and decided it was interesting enough to follow through as the fire was involved with a riot simultaneously and also involved the burning of a library complex.

References:
‘Egypt riots threaten cultural sites as Cairo library goes up in flame’ 2011, Haaretz, 19 December, viewed 28 May 2012, <http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/egypt-riots-threaten-cultural-sites-as-cairo-library-goes-up-in-flame-1.402408>.

‘Pictures: Fire Destroys "Temple of Knowledge" in Egypt’ 2011, National Geographic, 20 December, viewed 28 May 2012, <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/12/pictures/111220-egypt-cairo-protests-fire-scientific-complex-world-science/>.

Batrawy, Aya 2011, ‘Thousands of rare documents burned in Egypt clash’ MSNBC, 19 December, viewed 28 May 2012 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45727231/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/thousands-rare-documents-burned-egypt-clash/#.T8IgptUthS0>.