Literary Treasures Lost in Fire @ German Library (30K irreplaceable books)

[Khephra]

Up to 30,000 irreplaceable books were destroyed in a fire on Thursday night at one of Germany's most historic libraries, in the eastern city of Weimar, officials said on Friday.

Among the literary treasures lost at the Anna Amalia Library were thousands of works from the 16th to 18th centuries belonging to the collection of the first Weimar librarian, Daniel Schurzfleisch, and the sheet music archive of the library's patron, Anna Amalia (1739-1807), the duchess of Saxony-Weimar. Another 40,000 books were damaged by smoke and the water used by the firefighters, and are being frozen in an effort to preserve them so they can be sent to Leipzig for restoration. The cause of the blaze was unclear.

"The literary memory of Germany has suffered severe damage," German Culture Minister Christina Weiss said after she inspected the scene. "A piece of the world's cultural heritage has been lost forever." Ms. Weiss promised that the federal government would offer major assistance in restoring the books and the library, which is in a 16th-century rococo palace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/04/books/04libr.html

[Ms. Clio]

1. So sad--that's why libraries and archives really need to digitize

their holdings.

[Occulus]

2. But! But! But!

Digital material can be- GASP- copied!!!

We CAN'T have even the POTENTIAL for that!!!

/sarcasm

[Ms. Clio]

6. Isn't that just the craziest argument?

Better burned than copied.

[politicat]

15. It's been digitized. That doesn't make the loss any less.

Do you have an heirloom? Something not replaceable because of the memory value?

It's the same concept.

Pcat

[Ms. Clio]

21. Oh, certainly, it is still a huge loss

But a copy is better than nothing.

[politicat]

14. sure, as backups... but only as pictures. Not as text files. Or not solely

When I was in Russia in 94, I was preserving documents. (I'm waiting to get a call to see if I'm needed in Germany right now.) While we photographed them (pre-good digital scanners) nothing can replace the originals, which tell us far more about the creators than any picture can. ALL historians, given the opportunity, prefer to work from original source documents than scans, photos or text files. There's so much content lost when one is forced to work from a text file - was this word really used this way or was it a typo? Is this a blot or a bit of mold? There's a lot one can learn even from handwriting - and especially with older manuscripts, the handwriting can tell you if the document was altered after initial writing.

Besides, they're priceless. Just because we have digital images of the Mona Lisa and The Scream doesn't mean we should abandon the originals.

Pcat

[Ms. Clio]

22. I'm a historian, and I couldn't agree more

But I often work with microfilms of old documents, and I would much rather have that, than nothing at all.

[politicat]

23. Yeah - they're backups. But the originals are still critical.

I learned so much from the Novgorod birchbarks that I would not have learned from even photographs (there's much to be said for being a grad student willing to do preservation work for 100 rubles a week and airfare....)...

What area is yours?

Mine is rather obviously Russian Medieval history (demographics and statistical population patterns....)

Pcat

[Ms. Clio]

24. U.S. Western history, primarily from about 1865 to WWI

Also women and gender.

One of my greatest regrets is the loss of the 1890 census.

[kestrel91316]

3. Sheesh, who cares about a bunch of old books........................

(sarcasm here, pretending I am a Repuke)

nobody reads anyway. Those people couldn't have had anything interesting or important to say that many years ago. They didn't even have MTV or Survivor or the internet then. And anyway, they're just a bunch of European FAGS.

(sarcasm turned off)

[Maple]

4. A long time ago

I read that libraries are the buildings most often deliberately set on fire. I've never found anything about that since, but this story brought it to mind again. I wonder if it's true.

[HarveyBriggs]

5. Books burned in Germany? Really?

Now where have I heard that before.

HB

[Dirk39]

7. Your kind of humour...

is very funny. I couldn't stop laughing for hours. I hope, you did already publish all or your die-hard jokes in a book that will never be burnt. It would be such a loss for our culture. Sorry for that personal attack! But please think for a second before you post something like this. It's all, I'm asking for.

Thank you from Germany,
Dirk

[Nambe]

13. from holliwood.

[Minstrel Boy]

8. I'm a big fan of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, and the

burning of Lord Sepulchrave's precious library, driving him mad, is almost unbearably poignant. Like imagining the written legacy humanity has lost through neglect, decay and destruction. Imagine how richer, and how different, our understanding of the ancient world would be if the Library of Alexandria had survived.

[Maple]

9. OOOoooh thank you for that!

I will order it forthwith, as it's new to me.

Yes, the Library at Alexandria could have changed our whole understanding of history. And maybe our present as well. It's the kind of thing that makes grown adults weep to think of the loss.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. you're welcome!

Enjoy it. I recommend ordering the omnibus edition, the cover of which I posted above. It's good to have them all together, and it includes a dozen critical essays, plus introductions by Anthony Burgess (who called it one of the greatest works of the 20th Century) and Quentin Crisp.

There was a BBC adaptation a few years ago, but I found it unwatchable. Peake's words are alone enough to create a world.

[Maple]

16. Will do. Sounds great!

I'm in your debt sir.

[Ms. Clio]

10. I have also mourned the loss of the Great Library at Alexandria

Also all the treasure trove of Aztec and Mayan documents that the Spaniards destroyed.

[Maple]

11. There are so many things

in the history of the world that are gone for good. We'll never know how much, or the difference they might have made.

We would have likely been much further ahead by now if progress hadn't been stifled by manuscripts and humans burned for heresy, or lost to accidents and wars.

[Ms. Clio]

18. I honestly don't know if humanity would have made any more progress

But just from a scholar's point of view, the knowledge we have lost about our past and other cultures is a tragedy.

[6000eliot]

17. Not to mention

all of the Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban.

[Ms. Clio]

19. Another desecration

And let's not forget the treasures of Iraq, looted and destroyed because the U.S. did not protect them (as they were required to do by the Geneva Convention).

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. Didn't they have an early version of the Necronomicon?

In the original binding, perhaps the O. Wormius copy.