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Tunisia library races to preserve rich polyglot press archive
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A conservator at the National Library of Tunisia, consults old newspapers, in the institution's archives in the capital Tunis, on January 26, 2022. As part of a campaign to preserve the country's archives, the library staff have been working to digitise the documents. The collection includes some 16,000 titles printed in Tunisia, numbering hundreds of thousands of editions of newspapers and periodicals.
(AFP /Fethi Belaid)
I
n the basement of the National Library of Tunis, conservator Hasna Gabsi combs through shelves of newspapers dating back to the mid-19th century to select the latest to digitise.
She picks out a yellowed copy of an Arabic-language newspaper printed in the 1880s, then walks to the sections containing French, Italian, Maltese and Spanish-language newspapers published in Tunisia.
"The archive is a witness to an important, historical culture," Gabsi said under the flickering neon lights.
The library's collection includes some 16,000 titles printed in Tunisia -- numbering hundreds of thousands of editions of newspapers and periodicals.
As part of a campaign to preserve the country's archives, the library staff have been working to digitise the documents.
Most of the newspapers are in Arabic, with the oldest from the mid-19th century when Tunisia was an Ottoman province.
After France occupied Tunisia in 1881, European settlers published periodicals in several languages, including French, Italian, Spanish and Maltese.
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