c Book Aid International
Bulawayo Public Library (Zimbabwe) is currently in dire financial straits. For more info on the situation and the Library’s appeal for help, see http://www.zddt.org/appeal-for-bulawayo-library-0306.html.
The situation in Mali, is increasingly volatile. The conflict has spread to Timbuktu, home of thousands of manuscripts documenting the rich heritage of West Africa through the ages.
The scholarly community is concerned for the safety of this cultural and intellectual heritage housed in the many libraries and private collections in Timbuktu. Its loss would be very detrimental to the development of African historiography.
Our West African colleagues, Drs. Habib Sy and Ibrahima Lo prepared a petition, urging the parties to the conflict to be mindful of the value of the heritage in these manuscripts and to spare them. You can find a copy of this petition on the WARA ( West African Research Association) website (www.bu.edu/wara)
The Library of the African Studies Centre Leiden has compiled a new web dossier on Water in Africa to coincide with the international conference, organized by the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) in collaboration with the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in Port Louis,Mauritius, 29-31 March 2012. Water and sanitation is also one of thefocal points of Dutch development cooperation policy in Africa http://www.ascleiden.nl/Library/Webdossiers/Water-In-Africa.aspx