A librarian in Baghdad
Saad Eskander is the director of Baghdad’s national library and has been tasked with rebuilding the stacks after nearly 60% of their documents were burned or stolen during the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime.
Eskander might dream of having the problems that beset the British Library, a building where there has been a recent furore about readers having to wait 20 minutes to deposit their coats and about a so-called ” frappuccino” culture of undergraduates that is besmirching the institution’s scholarly reputation. Does he worry for his own safety? After all, some armed groups in Iraq must hate what he’s doing at the library. “I never have a bodyguard,” he replies, “because that attracts attention. This idea of having bodyguards, changing cars two or three times, is very stupid. If they want to kill you, they will do it. If you are lucky you will stay, if not, you will be killed.” That is not to say he hasn’t taken precautions: the 46-year-old has moved house four times with his wife and year-old son since taking up the job.
