List of destroyed libraries, archives and museums

This is a list of destroyed libraries (and some associated archives and museums) that have been deliberately or accidentally destroyed or badly damaged. Sometimes libraries are purposely destroyed as a form of cultural cleansing. There are examples of accidentally destroyed libraries by human actions. Other times they are damaged by natural disasters like earthquakes, floods or accidental fires.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

List of libraries destroyed by human actions

Image	Name of Library	City	Country	Date of Destruction	Perpetrator	Reason and/or Account of Destruction
	Library of Alexandria	Alexandria	Ancient Egypt	Disputed	Disputed	Unknown/Disputed
	Library of Antioch	Antioch	Ancient Syria	AD 364	Emperor Jovian	The library was burnt by Emperor Jovian. It had been heavily stocked by the aid of his non-Christian predecessor, Emperor Julian
	Library of the Serapeum	Alexandria	Ancient Egypt	AD 392	Theophilus of Alexandria	The library was burned and looted at the decree of Theophilus of Alexandria, who was so ordered by Theodosius I.
	Library of Ctesiphon	Ctesiphon, Khvârvarân	Ancient Persia	AD 651	Arab Invaders	Books thrown into the Euphrates on the order of Caliph Umar.[citation needed]
	Library of al-Hakam II	Córdoba	Al-Andalus	976c.	Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir & religious scholars	All books consisting of "ancient science" were destroyed in a surge of ultra-orthodoxy.
	Library of Rayy	Rayy	Persia	1029	Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni	Burned the library and all books deemed as heretical.
	Library of Nishapur	Nishapur		1154	Oghuz Turks	City partially destroyed, libraries sacked and burned.
	Nalanda	Nalanda	India	AD 1193	Bakhtiyar Khilji	Nalanda University complex (the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world at the time) was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under Bakhtiyar Khilji; this event is seen as a milestone in the decline of Buddhism in India.
	Imperial Library of Constantinople			1204		In 1204, the library became a target of the knights of the Fourth Crusade. The library itself was destroyed and its contents burned or sold. The great part of the library that was saved later became absorbed into the Ottoman Sultan's library after the Muslim forces of Mehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Turks, captured Constantinople at the end of the siege of 1453.
	House of Wisdom	Baghdad	Iraq	1258	Mongol Invaders	Destroyed during the Battle of Baghdad. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.
	Madrassah Library	Granada	Crown of Castile	1499	Troops commanded by Cardinal Cisneros	The library was attacked by troops of Cardinal Cisneros in late 1499, the books were taken to the Plaza Bib-Rambla, where they were burned in public.
	Glasney College	Penryn, Cornwall	England	1548	Royal officials	The smashing and looting of the Cornish colleges at Glasney and Crantock brought an end to the formal scholarship which had helped to sustain the Cornish language and the Cornish cultural identity.
	Earl of Worcester's library	Raglan Castle	Wales	1646	Parliamentary Army	The library was burnt during the English Civil War by forces under the command of Thomas Fairfax
	Library of Congress	Washington, D.C.	United States	1815	Troops of the British Army	The library was destroyed during the War of 1812 when British forces set fire to the U.S. Capitol during the Burning of Washington.
The capture of Mandalay Palace	Royal library of the Kings of Burma	Mandalay Palace	Burma	1885 / 87	Troops of the British Army	The British looted the palace at the end of the 3rd Anglo-Burmese War (some of the artefacts which were taken away are still on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London) and burned down the royal library.
	Library of the Catholic University of Leuven	Leuven	Belgium	August 25, 1914	German Occupation Troops	The Germans set the library on fire as part of the burning of the entire city in an attempt to use terror to quell Belgian resistance to occupation.
	Public Records Office of Ireland	Dublin	Ireland	1922	Anti-Treaty IRA	The Four Courts was occupied by the Anti-Treaty IRA at the start of the Irish Civil War. The building was bombarded by the Provisional Government forces under Michael Collins.
	Institut für Sexualwissenschaft	Berlin	Nazi Germany	May 1933	Members of the Deutsche Studentenschaft	On 6 May 1933, the Deutsche Studentenschaft made an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later, the Institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz.
	National University of Tsing Hua, University Nan-k'ai, Institute of Technology of He-pei, Medical College of He-pei, Agricultural College of He-pei, University Ta Hsia, University Kuang Hua, National University of Hunan		China	1937–1945	World War II Japanese Troops	During World War II, Japanese military forces destroyed or partly destroyed numerous Chinese libraries, including libraries at the National University of Tsing Hua, Peking (lost 200,000 of 350,000 books), the University Nan-k'ai, T'ien-chin (totally destroyed, 224,000 books lost), Institute of Technology of He-pei, T'ien-chin (completely destroyed), Medical College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), Agricultural College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), University Ta Hsia, Shanghai (completely destroyed), University Kuang Hua, Shanghai (completely destroyed), National University of Hunan (completely destroyed).
	Library of the Catholic University of Leuven	Leuven	Belgium	May 1940	German Occupation Troops	Set on fire (probably by accident) while fighting between Belgian and German troops.
	National Library of Serbia	Belgrade	Yugoslavia	April 1941	Nazi German Luftwaffe	Destroyed during the World War II bombing of Belgrade.
	Załuski Library	Warsaw	Poland	1944	Nazi German troops	The library was burned down during the Nazi suppression of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The burning of this library was part of the general setting on fire of a large part of the city of Warsaw.
	National Library of Cambodia	Phnom Penh	Cambodia	1976–1979	The Khmer Rouge	Burnt most of the books and all bibliographical records. Only 20% of materials survived.
	Jaffna Public Library	Jaffna	Sri Lanka	May 1981	Plainclothes police officers and others	In May 1981 a mob composed of thugs and plainclothes police officers went on a rampage in minority Tamil-dominated northern Jaffna, and burned down the Jaffna Public Library. At least 95,000 volumes - the second largest library collection in South Asia - were destroyed.
	Oriental Institute in Sarajevo	Sarajevo	Bosnia and Herzegovina	17 May 1992	Bosnian Serb Army	Destroyed by the shellfire during the Siege of Sarajevo.
	National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina	Sarajevo	Bosnia and Herzegovina	25 August 1992	Bosnian Serb Army	The library was completely destroyed during the Siege of Sarajevo.
	Abkhazian Research Institute of History, Language and Literature & National Library of Abkhazia	Sukhumi	Abkhazia	October 1992	Georgian Armed Forces	Destroyed during the War in Abkhazia.
	Pol-i-Khomri Public Library	Pol-i-Khomri	Afghanistan	1998	Taliban militia	It held 55,000 books and old manuscripts.
	Iraq National Library and Archive, Al-Awqaf Library, Central Library of the University of Baghdad, Library of Bayt al-Hikma, Central Library of the University of Mosul and other libraries	Baghdad	Iraq	April 2003		Several libraries looted, set on fire, damaged and destroyed in various degrees during the 2003 Iraq War.
	Egyptian Scientific Institute	Cairo	Egypt	December 2011		A first estimate says that only 30,000 volumes have been saved of a total of 200,000.

List of libraries destroyed by natural disasters

Image	Name of Library	City	Country	Date of Destruction	Causes and/or Account of Destruction
	Imperial University Library in Tokyo, Max Müller Library, Nishimura Library, Hoshino Library		Japan	September 1923	An earthquake and the following fires.
	National Library of Nicaragua Rubén Darío		Nicaragua	1931, 1972	It was damaged in the 1931 earthquake. Another earthquake in 1972 caused damages; furthermore, it was looted.
	Several libraries, archives, and museums[citation needed]		India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Thailand, Sri Lanka	December 2004	The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. See Library damage resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

See also

• Library fires
• Book burning
• List of book burning incidents
• The Enemies of Books
• Library damage resulting from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

Further reading

• Polastron, Lucien X. (2007) Libros en Llamas: historia de la interminable destrucción de bibliotecas. Libraria, ISBN 968-16-8398-6.[1]
• Prieto Gutiérrez, Juan José. Plan de evacuación del patrimonio documental en bibliotecas.[2]
• Knuth, Rebecca. Libricide : the regime-sponsored destruction of books and libraries in the twentieth century. ISBN 0-275-98088-X
• Polastron, Lucien X. Books on fire: the destruction of libraries throughout history. ISBN 978-1-59477-167-5
• Civallero, Edgardo. When Memory Turns into Ashes... Memoricide During the XX Century DOI (Archived at WebCite)
• UNESCO. Lost Memory - Libraries and archives destroyed in the twentieth century (Archived at WebCite)

External links

• The threat to world heritage in Iraq: heritage destroyed (Archived at WebCite)