Image
|
Name of the library
|
City
|
Country
|
Date of destruction
|
Perpetrator
|
Reason and/or account of destruction
|
|
Library of Ashurbanipal
|
Nineveh
|
Neo-Assyrian Empire
|
612 BC
|
coalition of
Babylonians
,
Scythians
and
Medes
|
Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BCE by a coalition of Babylonians, Scythians and Medes, an ancient Iranian people. It is believed that during the burning of the palace, a great fire must have ravaged the library, causing the clay cuneiform tablets to become partially baked. This potentially destructive event helped preserve the tablets. As well as texts on clay tablets, some of the texts may have been inscribed onto wax boards which, because of their organic nature, have been lost.
|
|
Xianyang Palace
and State Archives
|
Xianyang
|
Qin China
|
206 BC
|
Xiang Yu
|
Xiang Yu, rebelling against emperor
Qin Er Shi
, led his troops into Xianyang in 206 BC. He ordered the destruction of the
Xianyang Palace
by fire.
[6]
|
|
Library of Alexandria
|
Alexandria
|
Hellenistic Egypt
Roman Egypt
|
Disputed
|
Disputed
|
Disputed,
[7]
[8]
see
destruction of the Library of Alexandria
.
|
|
Imperial library of
Luoyang
|
Luoyang
|
Han China
|
189 AD
|
Dong Zhuo
|
Much of the city, including the imperial library, was purposefully burned when its population was relocated during an evacuation.
[9]
[10]
: 460?461
|
|
Library of Pantainos
|
Athens
|
Roman Greece
|
267
|
Heruli
|
It was destroyed in 267 AD during the Heroulian invasion and in the 5th century it was incorporated into a large peristyle building.
|
|
Hadrian's Library
|
Athens
|
Roman Greece
|
267
|
Heruli
|
The library was seriously damaged by the Herulian invasion of 267 and repaired by the prefect Herculius in AD 407?412.
|
|
Library of Antioch
|
Antioch
|
Seleucid Empire
Roman Syria
|
364
|
Emperor Jovian
[11]
|
The library had been heavily stocked by the aid of the perpetrator's non-Christian predecessor,
Emperor Julian (the Apostate)
.
|
|
Library of the
Serapeum
|
Alexandria
|
Hellenistic Egypt
Roman Egypt
|
392
|
Theophilus of Alexandria
|
Following the conversion of the temple of Serapis into a church, the library was destroyed.
[12]
|
|
Library of
al-Hakam II
|
Cordoba
|
Al-Andalus
|
976
|
Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir
& religious scholars
|
All books consisting of "ancient science" were destroyed in a surge of ultra-orthodoxy.
[13]
[14]
|
|
Library of Rayy
|
Rayy
|
Buyid Emirate
|
1029
|
Sultan
Mahmud of Ghazni
|
Burned the library and all books deemed as heretical.
[15]
|
|
Library at Sazava Monastery
|
Sazava
|
Holy Roman Empire
|
c.1097
|
Abbot Diethard
|
After the removal of the Slavonic Benedictines from Sazava monastery, the new abbot destroyed all books written in
Old Church Slavonic
.
[16]
|
|
Library of Banu Ammar (Dar al-'ilm)
|
Tripoli
|
Fatimid Caliphate
|
1109
|
Crusaders
|
Following
Sharaf al-Daulah
's surrender to
Baldwin I of Jerusalem
, Genoese mercenaries burned and looted part of the city. The library, Dar al-'ilm, was burned.
[17]
|
|
Library of Ghazna
|
Ghazna
|
Ghurid empire
|
1151
|
'
Ala al-Din Husayn
|
City was sacked and burned for seven days. Libraries and palaces built by the
Ghaznavids
were destroyed.
[18]
|
|
Library of Nishapur
|
Nishapur
|
Seljuk Empire
|
1154
|
Oghuz Turks
|
City partially destroyed, libraries sacked and burned.
[19]
|
|
Nalanda
|
Nalanda
|
India
|
1193
|
Bakhtiyar Khilji
|
Nalanda University complex (the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world at the time) was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under the perpetrator; this event is seen as a milestone in the
decline of Buddhism in India
.
[20]
|
|
Imperial Library of Constantinople
|
Constantinople
|
Byzantine Empire
|
1204
|
The Crusaders
|
In 1204, the library became a target of the knights of the
Fourth Crusade
. The library itself was destroyed and its contents burned or sold.
|
|
Alamut Castle
's library
|
Alamut Castle
|
Iran
|
1256
|
Mongols
|
Library destroyed after the
capitulation of Alamut
.
[21]
|
|
House of Wisdom
|
Baghdad
|
Iraq
|
1258
|
Mongols
|
Destroyed during the
Battle of Baghdad
[22]
|
|
Libraries of Constantinople
|
Constantinople
|
Byzantine Empire
|
1453
|
Ottoman Turks
|
After the Fall of Constantinople, hundreds upon thousands of manuscripts were removed, sold, or destroyed from Constantinople's libraries.
[23]
|
|
Madrassah Library
|
Granada
|
Crown of Castile
|
1499
|
Cardinal Cisneros
|
The library was ransacked by troops of Cardinal Cisneros in late 1499, the books were taken to the
Plaza Bib-Rambla
, where most of them were burned.
[24]
|
|
Bibliotheca Corviniana
|
Buda
|
Hungary
|
1526
|
Ottoman Turks
|
Library was destroyed by Ottomans in the
Battle of Mohacs
.
[25]
|
|
Monastic libraries
|
England
|
England
|
1530s
|
Royal officials
|
The monastic libraries were destroyed or dispersed following the
dissolution of monasteries
by
Henry VIII
.
|
|
Glasney College
|
Penryn
,
Cornwall
|
England
|
1548
|
Royal officials
|
The smashing and looting of the Cornish colleges at Glasney and
Crantock
brought an end to the formal scholarship which had helped to sustain the
Cornish language
and the Cornish cultural identity.
|
|
Records on Gozo
|
Gozo
|
Hospitaller Malta
|
1551
|
Ottoman Turks
|
Most paper records held on
Gozo
were lost or destroyed during an
Ottoman raid
in 1551.
[26]
The raid is said to have "led to the near total destruction of documentary evidence for life in medieval Gozo."
[27]
|
|
Maya codices
of the
Yucatan
|
Mani
,
Yucatan
|
Mexico and Guatemala
|
1562-07-12
|
Diego de Landa
|
Bishop De Landa, a
Franciscan friar
and conquistador during the
Spanish conquest of Yucatan
, wrote: "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." Only three extant codices are widely considered unquestionably authentic.
|
|
Raglan Library
|
Raglan Castle
|
Wales
|
1646
|
Parliamentary Army
|
The
Earl of Worcester
's library was burnt during the
English Civil War
by forces under the command of
Thomas Fairfax
|
|
Załuski Library
|
Warsaw
|
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
/
German-occupied Poland
(
General Government
)
|
1794/1944
|
Imperial Russian Army
/
Nazi German
troops
|
After the
Ko?ciuszko Uprising
(1794), Russian troops, acting on orders from Czarina
Catherine II
, seized the library's holdings and transported them to her personal collection at
Saint Petersburg
, where a year later it formed the cornerstone of the newly founded
Imperial Public Library
.
[28]
Parts of the collections were damaged or destroyed as they were mishandled while being removed from the library and transported to Russia, and many were stolen.
[28]
[29]
According to the historian
Joachim Lelewel
, the Zaluskis' books, "could be bought at
Grodno
by the basket".
[28]
The collection was later dispersed among several Russian libraries. Some parts of the Zaluski collection came back to Poland on two separate dates in the nineteenth century: 1842 and 1863.
[28]
Government of the re-established
Second Polish Republic
reclaimed in the 1920s some of the former Załuski Library holdings from the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
following the
Treaty of Riga
. The original building was destroyed by the Germans during
World War II
.
German
soldiers also deliberately destroyed the collection (held in the
Krasi?ski Library
at the time - see below) during the
planned destruction of Warsaw
in October 1944, after collapse of the Warsaw Uprising.
[30]
[31]
[29]
Only 1800 manuscripts and 30,000 printed materials from the original library survived the war. After the war, the original building was rebuilt under the
Polish People's Republic
.
[32]
[33]
|
|
Library of Congress
|
Washington, D.C.
|
United States
|
1814
|
Troops of the British Army
|
The library was destroyed during the
War of 1812
when British forces set fire to the
U.S. Capitol
during the
Burning of Washington
.
[34]
This attack was retaliation for the burning of the Canadian towns of York and Niagara by American troops in 1813.
[35]
Soon after its destruction, the Library of Congress was reestablished, largely thanks to the purchase of Thomas Jefferson's personal library in 1815. A second fire on December 24, 1851, destroyed a large portion of the Library of Congress' collection again, however, resulting in the loss of about two-thirds of the Thomas Jefferson collection and an estimated 35,000 books in total.
[36]
|
|
Several libraries
|
Mexico City
and major Mexican cities
|
Mexico
|
1856-1867
|
Liberal
troops and
anti-clericalists
|
During and after the
Mexican Reform War
, under the
liberal governments
of
Benito Juarez
and
Ignacio Comonfort
, many convent libraries and Church owned school libraries were sacked or destroyed by Liberal troops and looters, most notably included San Francisco Convent Library, which had over 16,000 books (great majority of them were unique collections of Spanish colonial era productions), the library was totally destroyed. Other important libraries included San Agustin Convent Library, was looted and burned. The Carmen de San Angel Convent and its library were also totally destroyed (with a few books recovered), other affected convent libraries to different degrees were those of Santo Domingo, Las Capuchinas, Santa Clara,
La Merced
and the Church owned school Colegio de San Juan de Letran, among others, all of them in Mexico City. Similar events happened all over Mexico, especially in major cities. Besides books, other items such as altarpieces, unique collections of colonial period
Baroque paintings
, crosses, sculptures, gold and silver chalices (often robbed and melted) were also lost. Total estimates place the total of lost books and manuscripts at 100,000 by 1884.
[37]
[38]
|
|
University of Alabama
|
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
|
United States
|
1865-05-04
|
Troops of the
Union
Army
|
During the
American Civil War
, Union troops destroyed most buildings on the University of Alabama campus, including its library of approximately 7,000 volumes.
[39]
|
|
Mosque-Library
|
Turnovo, Bulgaria
|
Ottoman Empire
|
1877
|
Christian Bulgarians
|
Turkish books in a library were destroyed when the mosque was burned.
[40]
|
|
Royal library of the Kings of Burma
|
Mandalay Palace
|
Burma
|
1885?1887
|
Troops of the British Army
|
The
British
looted the palace at the end of the
3rd Anglo-Burmese War
(some of the artefacts which were taken away are still on display in the
Victoria and Albert Museum
in London)
[41]
and burned down the royal library.
|
|
Hanlin Academy Library
|
Hanlin Academy
|
China
|
1900-06-23/4
|
Disputed. Possibly the
Kansu Braves
besieging the west of the Legation Quarter, or possibly by the international defending forces.
|
During the
Siege of the International Legations
in
Beijing
at the height of the
Boxer Rebellion
, the unofficial national library of China at the Hanlin Academy, which was adjacent to the British Legation, was set on fire (by whom and whether deliberately or accidentally is still disputed) and almost entirely destroyed. Many of the books and scrolls that survived the flames were subsequently looted by forces of the victorious foreign powers.
|
|
Library of the Catholic University of Leuven
|
Leuven
|
Belgium
|
1914-08-25/1940-05
|
German Occupation Troops
|
The Germans set the library on fire as part of the burning of the entire city in an attempt to use terror to quell Belgian resistance to occupation.
[42]
The library caught again fire during the
World War II
German invasion of Louvain, Belgium.
[43]
|
|
Public Records Office of Ireland
|
Dublin
|
Ireland
|
1922
|
Disputed. Poss. deliberately by
Anti-Treaty IRA
or accidental ignition of their stored explosives due to shelling by
Provisional Government
forces.
[44]
|
The
Four Courts
was occupied by the
Anti-Treaty IRA
at the start of the
Irish Civil War
. The building was bombarded by the
Provisional Government
forces under
Michael Collins
.
[45]
|
|
Several religious libraries
|
Madrid
|
Republican Spain
|
1931
|
Anarchists
and
anti-clericalists
|
In 1931, several groups of radical leftists and anarchists, with the complicit inaction of the
Republican government
,
burned down several convents
in Madrid. Most included important libraries. Among them, the
Colegio de la Inmaculada y San Pedro Claver
and the
Instituto Catolico de Artes e Industrias
with a library of 20 000 volumes; the
Casa Profesa
with a library of 80 000 volumes, considered the second best in Spain at the time, after the
National Library
; and the
Instituto Catolico de Artes e Industrias
, with 20 000 volumes, including the archives of the
paleographer
Garcia Villada, and 100 000 popular songs compiled by P. Antonio Martinez. Everything was lost.
|
|
Oriental Library (also known as Dongfang Tushuguan)
|
Zhabei
,
Shanghai
|
China
|
1932-02-01
|
Imperial Japanese Army
|
During the
January 28 incident
in the
Second Sino-Japanese War
Japanese forces bombed The
Commercial Press
and the attached Oriental Library, setting it alight and destroying most of its collection of more than 500,000 volumes.
[46]
[47]
[48]
|
|
Institut fur Sexualwissenschaft
|
Berlin
|
Nazi Germany
|
1933-05-??
|
Members of the
Deutsche Studentenschaft
|
On 6 May 1933, the
Deutsche Studentenschaft
made an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later, the institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the
Opernplatz
.
|
|
National University of Tsing Hua
,
University Nan-k'ai
,
Institute of Technology of He-pei
,
Medical College of He-pei
,
Agricultural College of He-pei
,
University Ta Hsia
,
University Kuang Hua
,
National University of Hunan
|
|
China
|
1937?1945
|
World War II Japanese Troops
|
During
World War II
, Japanese military forces destroyed or partly destroyed numerous Chinese libraries, including libraries at the
National University of Tsing Hua
,
Peking
(lost 200,000 of 350,000 books), the
University Nan-k'ai
, T'ien-chin (totally destroyed, 224,000 books lost), Institute of Technology of He-pei, T'ien-chin (completely destroyed), Medical College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), Agricultural College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), University Ta Hsia, Shanghai (completely destroyed), University Kuang Hua, Shanghai (completely destroyed), National University of Hunan (completely destroyed).
[49]
|
|
National Library of Serbia
|
Belgrade
|
Yugoslavia
|
1941-04-06
|
Nazi German
Luftwaffe
|
Destroyed during the
World War II
bombing of Belgrade
, on the order of
Adolf Hitler
himself.
[50]
Around 500.000 volumes and all collections of the library were destroyed in one of the largest book bonfires in European history.
[51]
|
|
SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library
|
Sofia
|
Bulgaria
|
1943?1944
|
Allied bombing
Allied air forces
|
|
Krasi?ski Library
(housing
special collections
of the
National Library of Poland
, including the
Załuski Library
collection, as well as those of the
Warsaw University Library
and the
Warsaw Public Library
)
|
Warsaw
|
German-occupied Poland
(
General Government
)
|
1944
|
Nazi German
troops
|
The library was deliberately set ablaze by
Nazi German
troops in the aftermath of the suppression of the
Warsaw Uprising
of 1944. The burning of this library was part of the general
planned destruction of Warsaw
.
[33]
|
|
Library of the
Zamoyski Family Entail
|
Warsaw
|
German-occupied Poland
(
General Government
)
|
1944
|
Nazi German
troops
|
The library (which housed the collections of the former
Zamoyski Academy
) was deliberately set ablaze by the
Nazi German
troops in the aftermath of the suppression of the
Warsaw Uprising
of 1944. The burning of this library was part of the general
planned destruction of Warsaw
. Depending on source, 1800 to 3000 items constituting only 1.5% to 3% of the original collection (albeit the most valuable part) survived, partially due to the fact that the troops burning the library did not notice the entrance to the basement at the rear side of the building.
[52]
|
|
Central Archives of Historical Records
|
Warsaw
|
German-occupied Poland
(
General Government
)
|
1944
|
Nazi German
troops
|
In the aftermath of the suppression of the
Warsaw Uprising
of 1944, the archives (one of the pair of archives housing
historical documents
of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
, with the other located in
Vilnius
) were not only deliberately set ablaze, but the
Nazi German
troops also entered each of the nine accessible fire-proof vaults in the underground shelter and meticulously burned one after another (entrance to the 10th was blocked by rubble, thus saving its contents). Part of the general
planned destruction of Warsaw
.
[53]
|
|
Multiple private libraries all over Tokyo.
|
Tokyo
|
Japanese Empire
|
1945
|
US army air force
|
US firebombing of Tokyo in May 1945 destroyed many private Japanese libraries such as the 40,000 volumes in Hasegawa Nyozekan's house.
[54]
The firebombing of Tokyo destroyed the majority of personal libraries there with many publications from before the war being permanently lost.
[55]
Firebombing damaged Keio university in Tokyo.
[56]
|
|
Warsaw Public Library
|
Warsaw
|
German-occupied Poland
(
General Government
)
|
1945
|
Nazi German
troops
|
Before the outbreak of
World War II
the library already contained 500,000 book volumes. In January 1945 it was set ablaze by retreating Nazi German soldiers. As a result, 300,000 books were destroyed, another 100,000 were looted.
[57]
|
|
Raczy?ski Library
|
Pozna?
|
German-occupied Poland
(
Reichsgau Wartheland
)
|
1945
|
Nazi German
troops
|
The retreating
Nazi German
troops planted explosives in the building and triggered detonation, demolishing the entire structure and burning 90% of the collection, while the remaining 10% were looted in advance.
|
|
Lebanese National Library
|
Beirut
|
Lebanon
|
1975
|
Lebanese Civil War
|
The 1975 war fighting began in
Beirut
's downtown where the National Library was located. During the war years, the library suffered significant damage. According to some sources, 1200 of most precious manuscripts disappeared, and no memory is left of the Library's organization and operational procedures of that time.
|
|
National Library of Cambodia
|
Phnom Penh
|
Cambodia
|
1976?1979
|
The
Khmer Rouge
[49]
|
Burnt most of the books and all bibliographical records. Only 20% of materials survived.
[49]
|
|
Jaffna Public Library
|
Jaffna
|
Sri Lanka
|
1981-05-??
|
Plainclothes police officers and others
|
In May 1981, a mob composed of thugs and plainclothes police officers went on a rampage in minority
Tamil
-dominated northern Jaffna, and
burned down the Jaffna Public Library
. At least 95,000 volumes ? the second largest library collection in
South Asia
? were destroyed.
[58]
|
|
Sikh Reference Library
|
Punjab
|
India
|
1984-06-07
|
Indian Army
|
Prior to its destruction by Indian troops, the library hosted a vast collection of an estimated 20,000 literary works, including 11,107 books, 2,500 manuscripts, newspaper archives, historical letters, documents/files, and others mostly on Sikhism and in the Punjabi language but also on other topics and in other languages.
[59]
[60]
Its destruction could have been a desperate act on failure to locate letters or documents that could have implicated the then Indian government and its leader Indira Gandhi.
[61]
[62]
|
!
|
Central University Library of Bucharest
|
Bucharest
|
Romania
|
1989-12-2?
|
Romanian Land Forces
|
Burnt down during the
Romanian Revolution
.
[63]
[64]
|
|
Oriental Institute in Sarajevo
|
Sarajevo
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
1992-05-17
|
Bosnian Serb Army
|
Destroyed by the shellfire during the
Siege of Sarajevo
.
[65]
[66]
[67]
|
|
National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
Sarajevo
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
1992-08-25
|
Bosnian Serb Army
|
The library was completely destroyed during the
Siege of Sarajevo
.
[65]
|
|
Abkhazian Research Institute of History, Language and Literature
&
National Library of Abkhazia
|
Sukhumi
|
Abkhazia
|
1992-10-??
|
Georgian Armed Forces
|
Destroyed during the
War in Abkhazia
.
[68]
[69]
|
|
City library
|
Linkoping
|
Sweden
|
1996-09-20
|
Lack of evidence for trial
|
After a year of repeated, minor arson attempts against an information bureau for immigrants located in the building, the library is eventually burnt down to the ground.
|
|
Pol-i-Khomri Public Library
|
Pol-i-Khomri
|
Afghanistan
|
1998
|
Taliban
militia
|
It held 55,000 books and old manuscripts.
[70]
|
|
Iraq National Library and Archive
,
Al-Awqaf Library
,
Central Library of the University of Baghdad
,
Library of Bayt al-Hikma
,
Central Library of the University of Mosul
and other libraries
|
Baghdad
|
Iraq
|
2003-04-??
|
Unknown members of the Bagdad population
|
Several libraries looted, set on fire, damaged and destroyed in various degrees during the
2003 Iraq War
.
[71]
[72]
[73]
[74]
[75]
|
|
The People's Library
Occupy Wall Street
|
Zuccotti Park
Lower Manhattan
New York City
|
United States
|
2011
|
New York City Department of Sanitation
|
Over 5,000 books cataloged in
LibraryThing
were seized.
[76]
|
|
Egyptian Scientific Institute
|
Cairo
|
Egypt
|
2011-12-??
|
Aftermath of street clashes during the
Egyptian revolution
|
A first estimate says that only 30,000 volumes have been saved of a total of 200,000.
[77]
|
|
Ahmed Baba Institute
(Timbuktu library)
|
Timbuktu
|
Mali
|
2013-01-28
|
Islamist
militias
|
Before the library was burned down, it contained over 20,000 manuscripts with only a fraction of them having been scanned as of January 2013. Before and during the occupation, more than 300,000
Timbuktu Manuscripts
from the Institute and from private libraries were saved and moved to more secure locations.
[78]
[79]
[80]
|
|
Ratanda Public Library
|
Lesedi Local Municipality
|
South Africa
|
2013-03-12
|
Public riots
|
1,807 library books, technological infrastructure including seven patron workstations, a photocopy machine and a large screen television.
[81]
|
|
Libraries of
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
|
|
Canada
|
2013
|
Government of Canada
headed by prime minister
Stephen Harper
|
Digitization effort to reduce the nine original libraries to seven and save $C443,000 annual cost.
[82]
Only 5?6% of the material was digitized, and scientific records and research created at a taxpayer cost of tens of millions of dollars were dumped, burned, and given away.
[83]
Particularly noted are baseline data important to ecological research, and data from 19th century exploration.
|
|
Saeh Library
|
Tripoli
|
Lebanon
|
2014-01-03
|
Unknown
|
The Christian library was burned down, it contained over 80,000 manuscripts and books.
[84]
[85]
[86]
|
|
National Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina
(partially)
|
Sarajevo
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
2014-02-07
|
Seven Bosnian rioters suspected of having started the fire; two (Salem Hatibovi? and Nihad Trnka)
[87]
were arrested.
[88]
On 4 April 2014, Salem Hatibovi? and Nihad Trnka were released (although still under suspicion of terrorism), on conditions that they don't leave their places of residence and abstain from having any contact with each other. Both were also mandated to report to the police once every week.
[87]
|
During the
2014 unrest in Bosnia and Herzegovina
large amounts of historical documents were destroyed when sections of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, housed in the presidential building, were set on fire. Among the lost archival material were documents and gifts from the
Ottoman
period, original documents from the 1878?1918
Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina
, as well as documentations of the interwar period, the 1941?1945 rule of the
Independent State of Croatia
, papers from the following years, and about 15,000 files from the 1996?2003
Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina
.
[89]
[90]
In the repositories that were burnt, about 60 percent of the material was lost, according to estimates by ?aban Zahirovi?, the head of the Archives.
[91]
|
|
Mosul University libraries
and private libraries
|
Mosul
|
Iraq
|
2014-12-??
|
Ongoing
ISIL
book burning
|
Book burning.
[92]
|
|
Libraries in Al Anbar Governorate
|
Al Anbar Governorate
|
Iraq
|
2014-12-??
|
Ongoing
ISIL
book burning
|
Book burning.
[92]
|
|
Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) (partially?)
|
Moscow
|
Russia
|
2015-01-29
|
Unknown.
|
Fire spread to 2000 m
2
in third Floor. The roof caved in. Additional water damage. Ambient temperature too high for self-freezing of damaged Works. The library contains 14 million books, including rare texts in ancient Slavic languages, documents from the League of Nations, UNESCO, and parliamentary reports from countries including the US dating back as far as 1789.
[93]
|
|
Mosul public library
(Central Public Library in Ninawa)
|
Mosul
|
Iraq
|
2015-02-??
|
ISIL
book burning
|
8,000 rare old books and manuscripts. Manuscripts from the 18th century, Syriac books printed in Iraq's first printing house in the 19th century, books from the Ottoman era, Iraqi newspapers from the early 20th century.
[94]
|
|
Howard College Law Library,
University of KwaZulu-Natal
|
Durban
|
South Africa
|
2016-09-06
|
FeesMustFall
protestors
|
Law Library, including early
Roman-Dutch law
texts, burnt by protesters during confrontations with the police.
[95]
|