A destroyed library cannot be reduced to a number of lost books. It had a name, readers, activities, and sometimes archives whose existence was known only to a few people. The Reading in Gaza project seeks to preserve this history by documenting and mapping places of reading and writing affected by the war.
The work is also relevant to the way we view a library: as a building, a collection, but also a service and a living space. Behind the inventory lies a concrete question: what will it be possible to recover, pass on or rebuild if the memory of the place disappears with its walls?
Recovering a place through its traces
In its methodological presentation of 4 January 2026, the collective explains how it prepares its documentary records. It brings together direct and indirect testimonies, written and audiovisual documents, institutional reports, press coverage and traces left on social media.
These materials are not all of the same kind. A photograph, a memory gathered by telephone and an institutional record do not answer exactly the same questions. The value of a record lies in bringing them into relation while keeping the sources identifiable.
The team says that members of its scientific committee check the information several times. It plans dated updates and corrections. It also archives the content linked to, to limit losses when a page becomes inaccessible.
This is a documentary approach whose references readers can examine. It should not be confused with an independent assessment of each event by the magazine presenting it.
What library life encompassed
A feature by Sarah Rolfo published on 23 October 2025 in Takam Tikou, the journal of the BnF’s National Centre for Youth Literature, sheds light on the diversity of these places before they were destroyed or damaged.
The author describes municipal, university and community libraries, as well as libraries for children. She notes in particular the presence of children’s collections and activity spaces at the Edward Saïd libraries founded by the poet Mosab Abu Toha, first in Beit Lahia and then in Gaza City.
This diversity changes how an inventory should be read. An archival collection, a university library and a place where children come to read do not serve the same purpose. Bringing them together in a single total can indicate the scale of a loss; describing each place makes it possible to understand what has actually disappeared.
The 2025 feature also gathers testimonies about the circulation of books and the continuation of activities for children. It is a dated snapshot, not a guaranteed description of every site today.
Documentation and enabling access: two different tasks
The Association of French Librarians (ABF) circulated a call for expertise for Reading in Gaza. The announcement distinguishes two needs: adding information to records in liaison with local contacts, and contributing to the architecture of a digital resources platform.
This distinction matters. Describing a lost collection is not the same as restoring its contents. Likewise, creating a platform is not enough to guarantee that everyone concerned will be able to consult the documents they need. Preserving the memory of a collection and providing access to reading complement one another, but do not replace one another.
The announcement describes voluntary participation, coordinated by the ABF’s Livr’exil committee. It should therefore not be read as a job offer or as an announcement that a fully operational digital library already exists.
For anyone wishing to find out more, the ABF page provides a professional point of contact. It helps explain the type of contribution sought before people offer documents or expertise.
Reading a map without asking the impossible of it
A map makes places we did not know about visible. It can also create an impression of completeness. Yet an inventory depends on the testimonies available, the documents found and the possibility of verifying the information.
The cautious approach is to read each record alongside its date, references and any corrections. A place’s absence from a catalogue does not prove that it is absent on the ground. Conversely, the presence of a record does not automatically tell us about its current condition.
These distinctions do not detract from the project’s usefulness. They help us understand its scope: to make a trace available for consultation and revision, rather than freeze a history in a single image or number.
Preserving readers’ memories too
The issue goes beyond saving titles. Documenting how a library was used is a reminder that people studied there, organised activities and met other readers. Physical reconstruction and passing on this history are two aspects of the same work of remembrance.
Reading in Gaza thus offers another way into written heritage: books matter, but so do the places and relationships that brought them to life. Its records and the librarianship work accompanying them can be read as open documents, to be consulted in their detail rather than reduced to a symbol.
Illustrative photo: shelves at the Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library in Antwerp, in 2016. This photograph does not show a library in Gaza.
