Fresno City College African American History Month

Feb 21, 2003 College Center Student Lounge

Timbuktu Presentation

'Currently, there are about 700,000 manuscripts in Timbuktu and its surroundings that are on the verge of being lost if appropriate action is not taken, With the passing of the years, more documents become brittle and unreadable; these fragile manuscripts are handled without care -- some disintegrating when touched and in the case of those volumes belonging to private family collections, the books are sold to tourists who are unaware of their historical and cultural significance. In the year 2000, Timbuktu Educational Foundation was established in the United States. The following year, some of the founding members traveled to Timbuktu, Mali to do field research and assess the condition of the 700,000 volumes of books in the three major University sites and its vicinity.'