15567: Simidor: Fr. Adrien and the library of the Holy Spirit Order in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Daniel Simidor <karioka9@mail.arczip.com>

University Times
VOLUME 27 NUMBER 12 FEBRUARY 16, 1995

Copyright (c) 1995, University of Pittsburgh



SLIS professors aid reclamation of hidden Haitian
library collection

Hitler burned books in Nazi Germany and Pol Pot executed anybody
with a semblance of an education in the killing fields of
Cambodia. Dictators have always known that one way to control
their people is to keep them ignorant. So among the things
the Duvaliers did when they seized power in Haiti three decades
ago was to murder or drive out members of the country's
professional class, and then burn the libraries and museums.

"There are very few libraries, archives or records of any kind
left in Haiti," says Sally Buchanan, a faculty member in Pitt's
School of Library and Information Science who recently completed
some work in Haiti. "Even the Haitian parliamentary
building was burned to the ground with all of the legal records of
Haiti in it, so they don't have birth or death or marriage
records, except what might be found in churches. They did a pretty
thorough job of wiping out the cultural memory of the
country." Remarkably, though, one library survived both the
Duvaliers and the military junta that deposed Haiti's first elected
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1991. It contains 30,000 to
40,000 books and other documents on the history of the
Caribbean, the arts and letters of Haiti, and what may be the
largest and most extensive collection of works on the history of
slavery in the Western Hemisphere.

Going back to about 1860, the collection has been in the hands of
the Holy Ghost Fathers, or Spiritans, a Catholic order that
has been active among Haiti's poor for almost two centuries. Most
of it came from private Haitian collectors who left their
libraries to the order when they died.

The collection survived because 73-year-old Father Antoine Adrien,
the order's librarian, broke it up and hid it in various
locations around the island. "He doesn't talk about where or how,"
says Buchanan. "He just says it was in Haiti." Since the
intervention by U.S. troops stabilized the political situation in
Haiti last year, the collection has been unpacked and shelved, but
under less than ideal conditions. The heating, ventilating and air
conditioning system of the library where it is housed is ancient
and often breaks down. Due to its years in storage, too, much of
the collection is badly deteriorated and it is all in need of being
cataloged, which is why Buchanan and Father Romano Almagno,
another faculty member in the School of Library and
Information Science, traveled to Haiti last month.

Buchanan and Almagno became involved in the project after Father
William Headley of Duquesne University contacted the Pitt
experts and asked if they would be interested in going to Haiti to
examine the collection. The Congregation of the Holy Ghost at
Duquesne has extensive contacts in Haiti.

At a meeting in November involving Adrien; other Spiritan priests
from Duquesne; Toni Carbo Bearman, dean of Pitt's School
of Library and Information Science, and Almagno, Buchanan
suggested that a model library preservation project she had
developed for use in Latin America for the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) might
work in Haiti.

The major phases of the model plan include cataloging collections
and publishing the catalogs, microfilming collections and
bringing the microfilm back to the United States for safekeeping,
and training local librarians in preservation practices.

January's trip to Haiti by Buchanan, Almagno and Sheilla Desert, a
Pitt graduate student who is Haitian, was the first step in the
plan. Its immediate goal was to assess the scholarly value of the
collection and to conduct workshops for four young Haitian
librarians. Funds for it were provided by UNESCO, which has
indicated that it is interested in seeing a report for funding of
the next phases.

"While we were there, we also met with the minister of culture,"
says Buchanan. "What he hopes is that the collection, along
with two or three other distinguished collections that are held
privately by families in Haiti, eventually will form the core of a
new national library." Because Haiti was a central port for slave
ships from the earliest colonial days, the collection dates to
1553. A scholar from another university who has seen the
collection told Adrien that it contains materials she had heard
about, but had never seen and believed no longer existed.

Much of the collection is in English, according to Buchanan, but
there also are large portions in French and Creole. "The
material presents both a pro-slavery attitude and an anti-slavery
attitude," Buchanan says. "It contains log books from slaving
ships. It contains all kind of legal documents having to do with
the slaves themselves, their indentures, sale slips for slaves, and
narratives about the history of slavery." Much of the material in
the collection was published by the Society of Friends or the
Quakers, who were among the most vocal opponents of slavery. It
includes a letter from a Quaker in England to George
Washington, castigating the first president of the United States
for allowing himself to be called the father of his country while
continuing to own slaves.

Buchanan did not see anything in the Quaker material connected to
William Penn or other members of the Penn family, but she
did find and bring back for conservation an anti-slavery pamphlet
published in 1836 by the Pittsburgh Society of Friends.

"It's in very serious condition because it got wet in storage and
is badly molded," she says. "I brought it back to consult with a
paper conserver here in Pittsburgh at The Carnegie." The
collection also contains six copies of the anti-slavery newspaper
The Colored Man, which was published in Philadelphia for three
years prior to the Civil War. The six issues in Haiti are the only
known copies. Several other newspapers produced by African
Americans after the Civil War also are part of the collection, as
well as numerous Caribbean newspapers, including a complete run of
one Haitian newspaper that goes back about 200 years.
Due to its unique nature, Buchanan says it is difficult to place a
monetary value on the Haiti collection. As far as scholarly value
is concerned, however, she says that much of the material is
completely new. "I suspect that scholars are going to be truly
amazed at what is represented there," she says.

But the decades in which the collection was kept in hiding in
Haiti's tropical climate have taken their toll. Along with the
usual problems of deteriorated acidic paper, loose pages and
bindings, portions of the collection are suffering from mold,
water and insect damage that will be expensive to correct.

Conservation work on a single volume can cost from $100 to $500 or
even more, depending upon the condition of the object
being preserved, according to Buchanan. She estimates that the
small pamphlet published by the Pittsburgh Society of Friends
in 1836 alone will cost $200-$300 to restore. Building a catalog
and publishing it also will cost "many thousands of dollars,"
according to Buchanan. And the rule of thumb for microfilming
material is $75 to $100 per volume. Buchanan says the Spiritans
also would like to continue to add to the history of slavery
collection. And she is hopeful they will succeed. "I think once
people know that this distinguished collection exists, it is
highly likely that they will receive other donations," she says.

--Mike Sajna