SURVIVING BOSNIA

"Bosnia.net"
http://www.bosnia.net




The burnt-out interior of the Sarajevo library (OCLC website).



Initiatives reviewed in this article:

Bosniaca Bibliographic Database (OCLC, Inc.)
Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project


The National Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina, built during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was housed in the former town hall of Sarajevo. Now it stands as a burnt-out shell of its former self. The Moorish Revival building was shelled and burnt in 1992--the roof, most of the windows, the shelves, and nearly all of the holdings (an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million volumes) are gone. Since the catalog also was destroyed, the only record of the National Library's holdings now exists only in the memories of those who worked and studied there.
A variety of international projects are now trying to reconstruct the collection of the library and Bosnia's cultural heritage. A good place to start searching for online information about these projects is "Bosnia.net"--courtesy of P3 art and environment,Tokyo; FAMA International Ltd.; and Sanshusha Publishing, Tokyo. "Bosnia.net" provides links to information on Bosnia and to various initiatives working on the resurrection of the library, and also features the Sarajevo Survival Guide and the PHOENIX project. The latter was conceived in 1994 by Ingo Gunther and Nik Williams as a concept for replacing the destroyed library. The concept was developed to serve as an inspiration for initiatives that were planned or on the way and focused on the regeneration of the "cultural genome," the part of the Bosnian heritage that had not yet been eliminated and could serve as the seed of renewal. "The Phoenix project" proposes the creation of a new cultural resource center in Sarajevo, a "library," but in a larger sense the ritual gathering of the broken pieces of a city and its population. A further proposition is to set up centers all over the world in places with concentrations of Bosnians or Croats--such as Zagreb, Vienna, Frankfurt, Paris, NY and all the refugee camps in Austria, Germany etc.--and to ask people to bring their most favorite books, so that they can be archived. The idea is to scan the books, so that an electronic facsimile can be kept as a reference and "historic original," and to store them as ASCII files on a floppy disc. The ASCII version is supposed to become part of an online library built remotely from outside Sarajevo with the help of libraries and organizations and accessible from anywhere. The initiatives that are now working on gathering those manuscripts rely less on Bosnians finding time to contribute than "the Phoenix project"; in any case, the online library is under construction.

Bosniaca Bibliographic Database

http://www.oclc.org/oclc/new/n220/intern.htm
Among these initiatives is the "Bosniaca Bibliographic Database," a project undertaken by OCLC Inc. (Dublin, Ohio), in cooperation with Yale University Library, Harvard University Library, the University of Michigan Library, and other academic and research libraries. The international collaboration, led by libraries that have large Slavic collections, such as Yale University, is aimed at reconstituting a bibliography of Bosniaca--items published in Bosnia or about Bosnia. Research scientists in the OCLC Office of Research use Bosniaca records found in the OCLC Online Union Catalog (OLUC) and records from appropriate special collections in various libraries to re-create a national catalog for Bosnia. The aim of the project is to track down the present locations of copied materials outside Bosnia and to create a virtual bibliography of Bosniaca by merging records from the sources and eliminating duplicates. As Edward T. O'Neill, consulting research scientist at the OCLC Office of Research points out, "The immediate need is not to physically rebuild the library. What is needed is a catalog of what the holdings of this library should be. With that the library can be rebuilt in the future with original materials or, if that is not possible, digital or microfilm reproductions of works."

Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project

http://www.applicom.com/manu/preced.htm
The Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project, organized by Andras Riedlmayer (Harvard University), Amila Buturovic (York University), and Irvin C. Schick (MIT), also collects information on the current whereabouts of copies--microfilms, photographs, photocopies, etc.--reproducing rare or unique books and documents, as well as other monuments of Bosnia's cultural heritage, such as architecture and works of art. The resulting database is meant to serve as a tool for the rebuilding of libraries and archival collections, and for the reconstruction of ravaged historical buildings.
"Bosnia.net" also features the "infamous" Sarajevo Survival Guide, published by FAMA, a Sarajevo-based company with representative offices in Tokyo and New York . (So far, the online guide is available only in Japanese; the English version is scheduled to appear soon.) The "Sarajevo Survival Guide" is a 95-page guidebook with glossy color photographs, designed along the lines of the classic Michelin travel guides. Like its traditional counterparts, it highlights the city's major sites and cultural life and gives tips on "getting the most out of one's visit," which, in this case, requires a certain amount of creativity. "Sarajevo Survival Guide" documents that "Wit can still achieve victory over terror," as the guide's publisher, Suada Kapic, a film and television producer, puts it.

The projects dedicated to the survival of Sarajevo's and Bosnia's cultural heritage are proof that wars ain't over when they're (officially) over--a reminder of how much effort and creativity it takes to renew the fabric of a nation, and personal as well as cultural identity.


Photo Credit: OCLC

© Hyperactive Co. 1996