Pay Library fines on 13th November and help support Book Aid International

Elizabeth Andrews
Tuesday 5 November 2019

Two men standing by a lorry which holds the first shipment of books arriving at Mosul University in 2018

Do you have library fines to settle? Pay them on Wednesday 13th November and your fines (up to a total of £1,000 gathered on the day) will be donated to Book Aid International, to support their ongoing Mosul University Library campaign.

Mosul University once boasted a world-leading research library, the largest in northern Iraq and one of the largest in the Middle East. It housed more than one million books for 150 university departments, covering diverse fields of knowledge. The library was among the first institutions targeted by ISIS after their occupation of Mosul in 2014. They would later burn it completely, destroying nearly all of its contents and the building’s structure. Following the liberation of Mosul from ISIS, some 50,000 students and university staff have now returned to their studies, but without many books their work is proving difficult.

Book Aid International is helping to change this. Working closely with local NGO Mosul Book Bridge and the director of Mosul University’s Central Library, they have been sourcing brand new, up-to-date books specific to Mosul University’s immediate needs. Several shipments of books have already arrived, and Book Aid International is committed to sending a total of 50,000 new books over the next five years. They need to raise £100,000 to do so!

Through your own experiences at St Andrews, you know just how vital a fully-functioning research library is to the life of any university. For every £2 raised on 13th November, Book Aid International can send another book to Mosul University. Last year’s fines donation day was featured by the BBC, can this one raise even more than our 2018 total?

For more information about Book Aid International’s Mosul University Library campaign, please contact Dr Alice König ([email protected]).

Guest post by Alice König

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