From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
Subject: [WSFA] 'Badass Librarians' Foil al Qaeda, Save Ancient Manuscripts
To: "gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org" <gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org>,
 WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>,
 WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>, bsfsgeneral <bsfsgeneral at bsfs.org>,
 RBoP Yahoo <rbop at yahoogroups.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2016 19:32:27 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

So, *why* do librarians get applause in panels at cons...?

Excerpt:
In 2012, jihadists\342\200\224armed to the teeth with weapons seized in Libya after
the fall of Muammar Qaddafi\342\200\224overran northern Mali and established a
brutal, sharia regime in Timbuktu. Once a center of learning and culture,
the city housed a priceless collection of manuscripts: volumes of poetry,
encyclopedias, and even sexual manuals that invoked the name of Allah.
Threatened with destruction, the manuscripts were spirited out of the city
to safety in a thrilling, cloak-and-dagger operation.

Speaking from his home in Berlin, Joshua Hammer, a former Newsweek bureau
chief in Africa, recounts the tale of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu:
And Their Race to Save the World\342\200\231s Most Precious Manuscripts\342\200\224and explains
how the Timbuktu manuscripts disprove the myth that Africa had no literary
or historical culture, why Henry Louis Gates had an epiphany when he saw
them, and why the jihadists found them so threatening.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/06/badass-librarians-joshua-hammer-timbuktu-manuscript-al-qaeda/>

          mark