Over the past years and decades, devastating fires have occurred with striking frequency in historic libraries around the world, resulting in the loss of priceless cultural heritage.

Major international fires of the last 10 years:

🔥 Jedd-el-Kareem Library in the Omari Mosque Complex (Gaza, 2023/2024): During the military conflicts in the Gaza Strip, the historic library, which housed one of the most important collections of ancient manuscripts and religious texts in the region, was severely damaged by fire. Most of the approximately 20,000 historical books were burned or destroyed.

🔥 Jagger Library at the University of Cape Town (South Africa, 2021): In April 2021, a massive wildfire that spread to the university campus destroyed the historic reading room of the Jagger Library. The library housed a world-famous collection of African studies, rare manuscripts, and historical maps, large portions of which were irretrievably lost.

🔥 National Museum of Brazil & Associated Collections (Rio de Janeiro, 2018): Although primarily a museum, the devastating fire in September 2018 also destroyed scientific reference libraries as well as irreplaceable historical documents and archives relating to the Indigenous history of South America.

🔥 Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences – INION (Moscow, Russia, 2015): In a major fire in 2015, approximately 15 to 20 percent of the vast collection (including rare Slavic texts and historical documents) was destroyed or severely damaged by firefighting water.

🔥 Mackintosh Library at the Glasgow School of Art (Scotland, 2014 and 2018): In May 2014, a devastating fire destroyed the historic Mackintosh Library, designed by the renowned architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The library was famous for its unique interior and valuable collections of books and archives. While the building was undergoing restoration, another catastrophic fire broke out in June 2018, once again devastating the historic building. The cause of the second fire remains undetermined.

The most significant historic fire in the German-speaking world was the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library (Weimar, Germany, 2004), the largest and most devastating library fire in German postwar history. Although the disaster occurred more than 20 years ago, it remains very much present in collective memory, as the extremely painstaking restoration of the so-called "ash books" (fire-damaged book pages) continues to this day. At the time, the fire destroyed around 50,000 valuable historical books and 35 paintings in the famous Rococo Hall.

Fire is only one possible means of deliberately destroying ancient knowledge passed down through generations. Let us protect the remaining book collections threatened by AI, because efforts are constantly being made to further reduce important historical records that bear witness to our past!

PRESERVE OLD BOOKS AND BUILD YOUR OWN LIBRARY!

@OnlyFaithOverFear