
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu - edward
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21699430-paper-trail?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/papertrail
======
HillRat
It's a terrible shame what happened to Mali -- until the collapse of Libya it
was a stable, if terribly poor, democratic state. The return of militant
Tuaregs (now armed with the weapons Qadhdhafi had outfitted them with as his
personal militia) and the merging of al-Qai'da in the Maghreb with Algerian
tribes created a fertile soil for extremist violence.

Timbuktu was once a great center of learning and commerce, at the heart of a
sophisticated West African empire. These neo-Kharijites have nothing but
contempt for history.

~~~
dagaci
What happened is also a warning. Hopefully the digitization process will be
accelerated as a result.

What is more surprising is how big the collection is (~500k is spoken of) yet
how few of them have actually been translated and read.

------
jegoodwin3
One of the first American novels was about Timbuktu (though fictional, as
novels often are)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algerine_Captive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Algerine_Captive)

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
Aren't novels fiction by definition?

------
zgniatacz
recent talk at google
[https://youtu.be/Ag9OLc7I_YM](https://youtu.be/Ag9OLc7I_YM)

