'We Are All Waiting for a Plan'

Having survived Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake, Patrick Tardieu's first thoughts were of the fate of the thousands of rare and historical books in peril at the La Bibliotheque Haitienne des Peres du Saint Espirit, the island's oldest library. With some assistance, the curator and head archivist climbed scaffolding under treacherous conditions to rescue thousands of books that were later boxed for safekeeping.

Days later the building collapsed.

That near disaster is just one story of the task ahead for archivists attempting to keep Haiti's history alive in the wake of the earthquake. Tardieu joined other interveners in this current moment of protection and preservation last week for the conference "Haiti's History: Foundations for the Future." Organized by Duke professors Laurent Dubois, a specialist in the history and culture of France and the Caribbean, Deborah Jenson of Romance Studies and Jean Casimir, the former Haitian ambassador to the United States and a visiting scholar at Duke.

The conference had originally been planned for February, during the first weeks of recovery, but was delayed while Tardieu and other panelists removed documents from unstable buildings.

The chief concern among conference attendees was what could be done to help preserve and share rare and delicate materials. The solution, from all aspects, involved a significant infusion of capital to help realize the goal of preservation.

Brooke Woolridge, coordinator of the Digital Library of the Caribbean, a grant project administered by Florida International University, spoke of the state of archives and government records in the earthquake's aftermath. She said there is a small but growing network of universities, including Duke, raising money and awareness about the plight of Haiti's libraries. She hoped to encourage communication across institutions and, most importantly, with Haitians. At this moment, she explained, "we are all waiting for a plan."

She brought to the conference a message from the Francoise Thybulle, director of the National Library of Haiti:

"We are in desperate need of support because after two months, the Haitian capacity to produce is back. They need references to start to express themselves again. The users sleeping in the nearby camps would like to go back to their dissertations."

"To me, the situation of the libraries is very catastrophic. Some books are on the street. Some scholars and intellectuals have lost their personal collections," said Watson R. Denis, a history and international relations professor at the State University of Haiti.

Denis said there were 25,000 students enrolled at the university before the earthquake. About 300 perished in the quake. Eight of the university's 11 facilities are still intact, but the institution has lost $2 million worth of computers and furniture.

He said that some private universities have started to resume their programming, and the Haitian government gave $400,000 for the resumption of academic activities, "but it is not enough. We need at least $9 million for repairs," Denis said.

He believes the tragedy has provided an opportunity to consolidate the university's various campuses and libraries into one new campus, just outside of Port-au-Prince.

"We need your support to become a much better center of higher education. The university is a key institution for modernization and progress. Alone we can go slowly, very slowly, but with your cooperation we can go far," Denis said. "We have the talent and human energy but we need capital."

Ted Widmer, director and librarian at the John Carter Brown Library (JCB) of Brown University, spoke of his library's efforts to preserve Haitian archives. The JCB is digitizing its collection of 1,000 books, written before 1825. It holds the largest collection of Haitian pre-independence books.

Widmer said he hopes digitizing the books will make them accessible via the Internet to Haitian scholars, school children as well as people with varying degrees of literacy. The process, Widmer said, is costly and time-consuming. Each book is scanned and treated as an artifact. Users can see the cover, binding and zoom in to analyze the typefont and qualities of the print. The website featuring the digitized books will be unveiled on May 7.

Widmer said he believes interested academics need to network with funders. Funding posed a problem early on, as did persuading others to elevate Haiti in the JCB archives. The digitized books are open source, or free, and can be shared online. Part of his long-term plan is to translate the website into Creole and French.

"My fondest dream is that a 10-year-old will see one of these books and start a passion for life-long learning," Widmer said.