Libraries and Museums in Bosnia-Herzegovina Requesting Assistance

"In Mostar East there is a library made out of planks and bricks in a cinema entrance hall. In Dobrinja (the Sarajevo airport suburb) there is a library organized by a literature student who collected books from destroyed and deserted flats; she made reader and loan files, and her library was very well visited by doubly besieged Dobrinja inhabitants." (Edina Vlasic, President of the Association of Librarians of Bosnia and Herzegovina.)
Although there has been some progress in rebuilding, libraries in Sarajevo and other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina still need assistance. Functioning libraries are a key to the continuing efforts to repair the wounds of war, to reviving educational and cultural institutions and to serving the information needs of physicians, engineers, and other professions.

Most urgently needed are funds---to help repair and refurbish damaged and destroyed library buildings, to help train and retain professional librarians and archivists, to help rebuild services and to undertake much needed conservation measures.

Donations of current reference works, up-to-date textbooks, subscriptions to journals and technical literature (in English and other European languages) are needed to help rebuild and strengthen library collections. They also need up-to-date equipment and supplies (computers, current software, CD-ROM and microform readers, photocopiers, microfilming equipment, bindery tools and conservation supplies) and the funds to purchase and maintain them.

A non-governmental organization, Sabre-Bosnia-Herzegovina, has been set up in Sarajevo to help facilitate pre-approved book donations to Bosnian libraries. It is directed by Dr. Kemal Bakarsic, Assistant Professor of Librarianship at the University of Sarajevo. Direct inquiries to:

Some addresses of libraries in Bosnia and Herzegovina are:

In the above list, the library of the University of Banja Luka has been omitted, because that institution at the present time operates under a policy of "racial hygiene"---students, faculty, and staff judged to have tainted blood (Muslims, Croats, Jews, Gypsies, and "mongrels") have been systematically purged from the institution and have been expelled from the city; many were arrested, beaten, and killed, most were driven into exile; the fate of many of them is still unknown.

Institutions that continue to operate on the principle of racial and religious discrimination have no right to demand any share of the reconstruction assistance being provided by the international community. In any event, Banja Luka did not suffer major war damage (other than the loss of human life and talent entailed by the brutal expulsion of the non-Serb half of its population) and is not in the same desperate situation as other cities in Bosnia. Unless they decide to mend their ways and make amends, we are under no obligation to reach out to such institutions merely for the sake of some misplaced "evenhandedness."

Similarly, the University of Mostar on the HVO-controlled west bank of the Neretva River has purged its ranks of all Serbs, Muslims, and other non-Croat faculty, students, and staff. It is also left out of this listing. By contrast, excluded faculty and students (mostly Muslims, but also some Serbs and Croats who don't care for ethnically pure institutions) have reconstituted Dzemal Bijedic University (the old pre-war name of the University of Mostar) on the east bank. We will post point-of-contact information for them as soon as we can.

Ethnic pluralism has managed to survive in the government-controlled areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina: the director of the Historical Institute in government-controlled Sarajevo is a Serb, and members of the staffs of the National and University Library, the National Museum, and other institutions in that city continue to include Serbs, Muslims, Croats, Jews, and others. These are the institutions that deserve our solidarity and any assistance we can offer.

Please help us complete this list! If you know of other library administrators and/or addresses in Bosnia-Herzegovina, please send e-mail to riedlmay@fas.harvard.edu.

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