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Rebuilding a Library with Dr. Mohammed Jasim, Director of Mosul University Libraries
Mehiyar 0:00 Hello and welcome to the Nahrein Network podcast series. Today we're joined by Mohammed Jassim, director of the Mosul University Libraries. Hello, Mohammed.
Mohammed Jassim 0:08 Hello.
Mehiyar 0:09 It's good to have you here at UCL office.
Mohammed Jassim 0:11 Thank you.
Mehiyar 0:12 Tell us about your work. We have started in repairing and getting back the library after the liberation from Daesh in January 2017. First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me this great opportunity to speak about the library, and Mosul University in general. And also I have to thank all the Iraqi forces with all their types because they made all the sacrifices in order to liberate Mosul city, and without them, we wouldn't be able to come back again to the city of Mosul. Mosul University has more than, by now, has more than 40,000 students, has 23 colleges with 123 departments, scientific and humanitarian. In addition to eight research centers, we have in the university about 5,000 staff members, in addition to 6,000 employees in the university. After the revelation, all the staff members, our students returned back to the main campus of the University. They are back and we were able to complete a studying year. We had a wonderful year, the students completed their exams, and we gave them the results. So everything were fine, though we still have too many challenges like our labs were destroyed completely. Some of the buildings were also completely destroyed. And the main library, the central library of mostly University, which I direct is completely destroyed and burned by ISIS terrorist groups. How many libraries are there in Mosul?
Mohammed Jassim 1:53 Actually, we have four libraries, the main one is the Mosul University library. Also we have a public library. And also we have an library of museum. Finally, the library of Sunni Endowment.
Mehiyar 2:08 And all these were destroyed, or only some of them?
Mohammed Jassim 2:11 Yes, unfortunately, all of them were destroyed. Mosul University library, which I'm going to talk about is the biggest one and one of the leading libraries in Iraq, which once hosted more than million resources 600,000 in Arabic, and 400,000 English. We had about 10,000 reference materials. We had about 7,000 publications, books go back to the foundation of Iraqi Government in 1921. We had books, rare collection of rare books about 7,000, which were unfortunately, most of them were destroyed. Some of them go back to 1200 and 1300 [AD]. We had about 2 million e-materials, electronic books. It is really a big loss and the library got burned and destroyed.
Mehiyar 3:04 And you're working on rehabilitating the Mosul University Libraries.
Mohammed Jassim 3:08 Yeah, once we came back to the city, we- I wrote an appeal letter addressed to locals and international institutions. We have received donations especially from local universities. From Al-Kufa [University] I've got 9,000 materials, we've got from all different universities and all over Iraq. Also, we have received donations from Book Aid International, about 4,000 books. We had about 3,000 books from Plymouth University and from Manchester University about 1,500. Our students worked with the administration and the University of Manchester to collect and donate materials for us. Our hardest issue right now is we don't have a building for the library, that hardens our work. It's really difficult because we are just like running through to different places. And back to the donations. We have made beautiful discussions with University of Oxford Press. We are working to move and get access, have our students access to their e-materials. They were really very supportive for us. And we are also working with Book Aid International to renew the contract with them to get a long term partnership. We think that this is a new Mosul and the international world should support us as long as we are all unified and defeated ISIS so we believe that we should all reconsider and rehabilitate Mosul, the Mosul University, and especially the library, because the library represented the heart of the university. It's a center of knowledge, center of education and it represents a lot when people and students get the resources from Mosul University library, it means that they can just stay in the city and not think of leaving the city again. So we've made a great progress in that. We are getting in touch with many institutions and universities. And also in the United States, we are getting in touch with Rutgers University, we are working in order to get a long term partnership with them. We're waiting for fruitful discussions with them. Also, there is an association in the US, which is concerned with support Iraq American association, they are working collecting materials, hopefully we'll get their materials soon.
Mehiyar 5:42 Could you just tell us about the damage to the Central Library? This is not the University Library, the other library that has been damaged? Do you know anything about that type of damage? What, what kind of collection did they have?
Mohammed Jassim 5:53 Actually, in the public library, they have different types of books, they still have sort of all the rare books. Fortunately, the building were not destroyed. But we've heard different stories, but we are sure that they lost most of their collection. In the museum library they had rare books, books go back to seventh, eight century. So they -
Mehiyar 6:18 These were burned by Daesh?
Mohammed Jassim 6:20 Yeah, burned by ISIS groups.
Mehiyar 6:22 Towards the end of their rule in or in the beginning of Daesh's control of Mosul, do you know when these books were burned. Or systematically right through their presence in Mosul?
Mohammed Jassim 6:33 Actually, during ISIS, we were not in Mosul. While we've heard different stories about, but we are sure that they get burned when they knew that Iraqi forces approaching then they burnt everything. And also we have some stories that they looted the books and took them somewhere else.
Mehiyar 6:52 These are the valuable, precious rare Books.
Mohammed Jassim 6:54 Yes.
Mehiyar 6:55 Do you think perhaps they were traded? Because they were valuable?
Mohammed Jassim 6:58 Yeah, they're really valuable books. And we think that they just- we've heard about, about some stories. They took Syria through, something like that, but I'm not sure.
Mehiyar 7:09 And you're one of the recipients of the Nahrein Network and the British Institute for the Study of Iraq, Iraqi Visiting scholarships grant. You'll be based at the British Library. Could you tell us a bit more about that and what kind of work you'll be doing with the British Library.
Mohammed Jassim 7:23 So I should thank Nahrein Network for this great initiative. Actually, [what] I'm going to do is just work through the digitizing the material that are recovered in Mosul University Library, and it gives me a good time to make a sort of arrangement throughout the donors and work expected from me here from the British Library, because we expect and everybody knows that the British Library represents a lot in the world, in the field of library, in the field of resources. And I think this is gonna be a great opportunity to get in touch through different institutions here in UK, and I'm sure it brings the benefit to Mosul University in general and for the library in specific so yeah, that is much appreciated for the Professor Eleanor Robson and for everybody who works at the Nahrein Network.
Mehiyar 8:17 Can you tell us about Mosul University? When was it established? What kind of state is it in, was the university destroyed? What kind of support is needed to rehabilitate that university?
Mohammed Jassim 8:27 Yes, this is actually a good question. Mosul University was established in 1967. Originally, there was a college of medicine which was established in 1958, but officially in 1967 was the date when the university stablished. So as I mentioned earlier the university has 23 colleges in scientific and humanitarian. University has more than 40,000 students they're finished the studying here just finished that and we had an amazing year because nobody thought that we'll be able to complete the studying year. As you know, destruction or destruction percentage at Mosul University is about 70% of the buildings get destroyed or burnt, have [been] affected by ISIS terrorist groups. But the staff they do wonderful job, they just started to fix the classes from their own efforts. They worked hard in order to make something unreal to be real. They did a wonderful job, nobody expected that. I can tell you that we saw our professors working, fixing painting the classes in order to have the students come back again and in order to also to revive the life of the University and also for the library tools. And we are working through different substitute sites, receiving materials. Our committees are working to distinguish the books and save them to reactivate the college or department libraries. In the university, there is a wonderful work. We have everyday activities going on in the university. For the first time, you can see other university students from the south and from other parts of Iraq now are studying in Mosul University. And that wasn't been the case before either. ISIS when they came in was really hard to find someone from the south to study in the University of Mosul, but right now everybody is working and studying there, just like brothers and sisters. Everything is fine. I think, just we need to, the services to be back again. We know that UNDP is working hard and I can tell you that UN UNDP is working in Mosul, especially Mosul University. And we have here the initiatives from French government through the unit of Francophonie is working hard in order to find out what kind of support that they can offer us, what's going on there.
Mehiyar 11:16 How can the international community support the rebuilding of Mosul, but particularly the library itself? What is required at the moment? Do you have equipment? Do you have chairs even? Do you have scanners for the few books that are left?
Mohammed Jassim 11:29 Actually, when we came back to the university, we didn't have anything, even we bought some materials from our own pockets. But later on through the contacts with international communities and institutions, we were able to get support from Prince Claus Fund, I have to mention this.
Mehiyar 11:50 This is in the Netherlands?
Mohammed Jassim 11:51 Yeah, this is a very wonderful initiative. And we appreciate it. We have got urgent materials like computers, chairs, tables. And finally we've got four ton lorry for the library just to move and to carry books. Also, we've got a donations from Charles University in Prague, they collected money, and they bought us urgent materials like computers, scanners and other stuff. So these are all in part, yeah, because that keeps our work going on.
Mehiyar 11:51 How are students now studying, what kind of materials do they have? What do they have to study with?
Mohammed Jassim 12:09 Actually, some of college libraries are pretty well, they're working well. They still have their own resources. And also, we have the Iraqi Virtual Science Library, which is an electronic, let's say almost, it's an electronic access for our students, they can just get access easily to it. And we, before we can, we knew that EBSCO participated and contributed in the Iraqi Virtual Science Library, which is a great aggregator of publishers. So we are working in that, we are trying our best in order to get at least e-materials for our students and researchers to keep the studying going. They really rely on the materials they have right now. And I can tell you that they completely depend on the materials from the internet.
Mehiyar 13:26 And in terms of preserving some of the rare manuscripts and books you have, you said that there were some that weren't affected by the destruction? What do you need from the international committee? Do you have scanners, for instance, you have equipment that can actually digitize, you mentioned that there are newspapers from the founding of the Iraqi state, what can the international community offer in terms of that kind of work?
Mohammed Jassim13:49 Actually, once the university liberated [a] group of young people volunteered and rushed to the library to save or to recover what might be recovered and they succeeded to recover several thousands of materials. Most of them were rare books, very important books and newspapers, again, go back to 1920s. So I guess this is a great call for solidarity and support to have a unit to use these materials. Unfortunately, we lack the equipments, we lack the scanners that are- because you know that we have to preserve these materials and we should take care of them and there is a way there is a specific way to deal with these materials. So there is a sort of specific devices that can be used in order to preserve these materials. This is why I am coming next time to British Library, in order to figure out what kind of materials needed and also this is a call for international organizations just to find out why to support us by getting all the devices needed in order to establish this unit. So again, this is a call for solidarity to preserve and support Mosul University in general because right now we don't have labs in the university. We don't have devices, we don't have equipment and the 40,000 students are studying and doing their best. But I think that it's time for the international communities and organizations to support those students by providing them equipments, devices, labs, computers and books in order to revive Mosul city, Mosul University and Mosul libraries.
Mehiyar 15:45 On that note thank you very much, Muhammad, we look forward to seeing you here, seeing you at the British Library. I wish you luck with your work. Mosul represents coexistence in Iraq. Rebuilding that is key to Iraq's stability, national heritage and development. Thank you very much.
Mohammed Jassim 16:00 Thank you very much. This is a great opportunity. And I would like also to thank Nahrein Network for their great initiative. And also I'd like to thank all the people here in UK who hosted me, iBBC, Oxford University, Book Aid International, and also Zaha Hadid architects office. They all come to us and I'm really happy to be here in London, and I look forward to our long term cooperation. Thank you so much. Thank you.