By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

On Oct. 21, Andras Riedlmayer and Jeffrey Spurr, librarians in Harvard's Fine Arts Library, were honored at the White House for their efforts to rebuild library collections in Sarajevo that were destroyed in the Bosnian conflict.

While the White House visit and their meeting with Hillary Rodham Clinton was exciting and gratifying, both are emphatic that such recognition is far from their motivation in undertaking such work.

For Riedlmayer the reason can in large part be summarized in a single name: Aida Buturovic.

Buturovic was a librarian and Ph.D. candidate who was killed in the shelling of Sarajevo's National and University Library in August 1992, when Serb gunners blasted the library with incendiary grenades, igniting a fire that burned for three days and destroyed 90 percent of the library's 1.5 million volumes. Buturovic was killed by a shell burst as she returned home after working with others to save rare books and manuscripts.

"People sometimes ask me why I am worried about books when so many human beings have died and suffered," Riedlmayer said. "My answer is to point to Aida Buturovic, because the two are inseparable."

Riedlmayer is Islamic art and architecture bibliographer in the Aga Khan Program in the Fine Arts Library. He and colleague Jeffrey Spurr, Islamic art cataloger, have been active in a worldwide effort to rebuild the Sarajevo library, as well as other cultural institutions of the war-torn city, such as the Oriental Institute, whose collection of priceless manuscripts was almost completely destroyed in May 1992.

Spurr has helped to organize an effort to send duplicate books from Widener Library to the National and University Library in Sarajevo. With the support of Sidney Verba, University Library Director, the project is off to an auspicious start and may eventually include other Harvard libraries.

Because nearly all of the Sarajevo Library's collection was destroyed, there is a great need for books of all types. "They have a complete rebuilding process ahead of them, so Shakespeare is as important as economic theory," Spurr said.

But on the other hand, he added, "We didn't want Bosnia to become a dumping ground for useless books."

To prevent such indiscriminate donations, a team of Harvard retirees is being organized, headed by Alan Erickson, retired librarian in the Cabot Science Library and chairman of the Harvard Retirees Association. These volunteers will cull Widener's offerings and select appropriate materials.

Meanwhile, Riedlmayer and Irvin Schick, a lecturer on engineering sciences, are directing the Bosnian Manuscript Ingathering Project, which aims to restore at least a portion of the manuscripts lost when the Oriental Institute was destroyed. Since many of the manuscripts have been photocopied by scholars, there is a good chance that many of them can be recovered at least in facsimile form. The group has its own site on the World Wide Web: (http://www.applicom.com/manu/ingather.htm) and welcomes communication from anyone around the world with information on copies of destroyed original manuscripts.

Riedlmayer and Spurr have also been working with William Lindsay, assistant director and chief financial officer of Harvard University Press (HUP), on another project which aims to rebuild Sarajevo's National and University Library's collection of more recent materials.

With the encouragement of President Neil L. Rudenstine, HUP is donating two copies of every volume in print to the National and University Library. Lindsay and Spurr have been waging a campaign to convince other university presses to take similar steps. At this time, M.I.T. Press and Chicago University Press have both pledged to make donations. Lindsay, who is a director of the Association of American University Presses, plans to address a meeting of the group in November and hope to convince other presses to join the effort.

"I think that if we can reach a critical mass, we'll be able to convince all the association's members to make contributions," Lindsay said.

For his efforts on behalf of Bosnia's libraries, Lindsay was also recognized at the White House ceremony last week.

The transfer of books to Sarajevo is being handled by the Sabre Foundation Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Cambridge which provides educational support to countries in Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union, and selected countries in other

regions of the world. Sabre's activities include book donation, library support, technical assistance, translation and publication

projects, and international scholarly conferences.

As Riedlmayer explains, the urgent need to help that is motivating so many people to take part in these efforts stems not only from the desire to replace books and manuscripts, but to restore a multi-ethnic heritage that nearly succumbed to bigotry and hatred.

For many years, Muslims, Christians, and Jews occupied Sarajevo in relative harmony. The city's libraries and archives were established in large measure to bear witness to the diversity that characterized its population. It was just this diversity that the Serbian nationalists sought to eradicate as part of their program of ethnic cleansing.

"They wanted to erase the history that was evidence of successful coexistence. The Serbian nationalists even went so far as to destroy their own history," Riedlmayer said.

Not only is this destruction of history a tragedy, it is also illegal, according to internationally accepted laws. The Hague Convention of 1954 declared it a crime to destroy libraries, museums, and architectural monuments that are not being used for military purposes. The Geneva Convention of 1977 reaffirmed this declaration, providing criminal penalties for those who deliberately attack cultural institutions.

Students from Harvard Law School are now gathering evidence to prove that the libraries and archives of Sarajevo were deliberately attacked. If the indictment is successful, it will be the first time an international court prosecutes individuals for crimes against culture.

"I hope it will have a deterrent effect on the attacking of civilian targets in general, not only libraries and museums, but hospitals and schools as well," Riedlmayer said.