Lebanon Archives and Libraries


 * Archives collect and preserve original documents of organizations such as churches or governments. Libraries generally collect published sources such as books, maps, and microfilm.
 * If you plan to visit a repository, contact them and ask for information about their collection, hours, services, and fees. Ask if they require you to have a reader’s ticket (a paper indicating you are a responsible researcher) to view the records, and ask how to obtain one.
 * Although the records you need may be in an archive or library, the Family History Library may have microfilmed and/or digitized copies of them.

Archives
National Archives Center of Lebanon Hamra Street, Piccadilly Center Beirut, Lebanon Telephone: (961-1) 36 57 83; 34 49 41 Fax: (961-1) 85 28 25 Facebook

Addresses of the Revival Project of the Lebanese National Library
Workshops Port of Beirut, Free Zone, 2nd and 3rd floors Lebanon Tel/fax: 961-1-562161 - 171 Office Ministry of Culture Hatab Bldg., 6th floor Madame Curie Road (Facing Bristol Hotel) Beirut, Lebanon The future location of the Lebanese National Library will be in Sanayeh (the premises of the former Faculty of Law of the Lebanese University). Tel : 961-1-735191 E-mail : geka@bnl.gov.lb, geka@lnl.gov.lb The future location of the Lebanese National Library will be in Sanayeh (the premises of the former Faculty of Law of the Lebanese University). Website]
 * History
 * The Lebanese National Library throughout the stages of its short history, has been confronted with a variety of difficulties, born not only out of the violence of men but also from their negligence; and from the absence of a responsible administrative structure....The effects of war
 * In 1975, the Lebanese differences become a tear, and the line of fire almost crosses the National Library (a red line that is nevertheless called "green", a fine euphemism but also a reference to the papyri, precisely, which, in the absence of printed books, multiply there near the gutted pipes…).


 * The team that takes care of the library is dispersed according to the forced displacements that an entire population undergoes. When they can, some, moved by a love of books contracted in their daily business, return to the scene to see the damage and are sorry for their helplessness and the absence of directives to save what is not yet burned. stolen or ransacked.


 * In 1979, i.e. four years after the start of the war, four years during which militiamen of all persuasions had plenty of time to "hone their culture" there, the National Library was declared "suspended from activity" and the government Lebanese entrusts the National Archives with the manuscripts (or what remains of them), the old documents and the portraits of the Lebanese intellectuals which adorned the reading room. Between 1982 and 1983, the modern collection was crated and deposited in a room, located in an area which would in turn be bombarded. Broken panes let rainwater and dust through, boxes are infested with insects, molds find ideal conditions to grow there.


 * Emerging from the war, Lebanon is rebuilding: roads, airports, major projects... For the National Museum, society is mobilizing, and the site is very quickly launched.


 * The National Library seems less prestigious. Information professionals and members of the Association of Librarians of Lebanon develop projects, which find little echo among officials. Finally, it was an expert mission by the National Library of France, in 1994, which alerted to the urgency of saving the documents and drew up an initial rehabilitation plan 1 . The boxes are stored in a drier warehouse, and a temporary room is assigned to the National Library, too narrow to envisage large-scale rescue operations. A few dozen cases are opened, inventoried, the books cleaned, but very quickly the scale of the task exceeds the means made available. The library risks being forgotten in the mysteries of a bureaucracy that does not concern itself with planning its action.

American University of Beirut
American University of Beirut

Archives and Special Collections