Name of Library
|
City
|
Country
|
Date of Destruction
|
Perpetrator
|
Reason and/or Account of Destruction
|
Xianyang Palace and State Archives
|
Xianyang
|
Qin China
|
206 BC
|
Xiang Yu
|
Xiang Yu, rebelling against emperor Qin Er Shi, led his troops into Xianyang in 206 BC. He ordered the destruction of the Xianyang Palace burning of books and burying of scholars earlier.
|
Library of Alexandria
|
Alexandria
|
Ancient Egypt
|
Disputed
|
Disputed
|
Disputed destruction of the Library of Alexandria.
|
Imperial library of Luoyang
|
Luoyang
|
Han China
|
189 AD
|
Dong Zhuo
|
Much of the city, including the imperial library, was purposefully burned when its population was relocated during an evacuation.
|
Library of Antioch
|
Antioch
|
Ancient Syria
|
364 AD
|
Emperor Jovian
|
The library had been heavily stocked by the aid of the perpetrator's non-Christian predecessor, Emperor Julian (the Apostate).
|
Library of the Serapeum
|
Alexandria
|
Ancient Egypt
|
392
|
Pope Theophilus of Alexandria
|
Following the conversion of the temple of Serapis into a church, the library was destroyed.
|
Library of Ctesiphon
|
Ctesiphon
|
Persian Empire
|
637
|
Caliph Omar of the Rashidun Caliphate
|
The library was burned and destroyed at the perpetrator's decree.
|
Library of al-Hakam II
|
Córdoba, Andalusia
|
Al-Andalus
|
976
|
Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir & religious scholars
|
All books consisting of ancient science were destroyed in a surge of ultra-orthodoxy.
|
Library of Rayy
|
Rey, Iran
|
Buyid Emirate
|
1029
|
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni
|
Burned the library and all books deemed as heretical.
|
Library of Avicenna
|
Isfahan
|
Kakuyid Emirate
|
1034
|
Sultan Mas'ud I
|
After conquering the city of Isfahan, the library of Avicenna was destroyed.
|
Library of Banu Ammar (Dar al-'ilm)
|
Tripoli, Lebanon
|
Fatimid Caliphate
|
1109
|
Crusaders
|
Following Sharaf al-Daulah's surrender to Baldwin I of Jerusalem, Genoese mercenaries burned and looted part of the city. The library, Dar al-'ilm, was burned.
|
Library of Ghazna
|
Ghazni, Afghanistan
|
Ghurid empire
|
1151
|
Ala al-Din Husayn
|
City was sacked and burned for seven days. Libraries and palaces built by the Ghaznavids were destroyed.
|
Library of Nishapur
|
Nishapur
|
Seljuk Empire
|
1154
|
Oghuz Turks
|
City partially destroyed, libraries sacked and burned.
|
Nalanda
|
Nalanda
|
India
|
1193
|
Bakhtiyar Khilji
|
Nalanda University complex (the most renowned repository of Buddhist knowledge in the world at the time) was sacked by Turkic Muslim invaders under the perpetrator; this event is seen as a milestone in the Decline of Buddhism in India.
|
Imperial Library of Constantinople
|
Constantinople
|
Byzantine Empire
|
1204
|
The Crusaders
|
In 1204, the library became a target of the knights of the Fourth Crusade. The library itself was destroyed and its contents burned or sold.
|
Alamut Castle's library
|
Alamut Castle
|
Iran
|
1256
|
Mongol Empire
|
Library destroyed after the Mongol campaign against the Nizaris and capitulation of Alamut.
|
House of Wisdom
|
Baghdad
|
Iraq
|
1258
|
Mongol Empire
|
Destroyed during the Siege of Baghdad (1258) and Battle of Baghdad.
|
Libraries of Constantinople
|
Constantinople
|
Byzantine Empire
|
1453
|
Ottoman Turks
|
After the Fall of Constantinople, hundreds upon thousands of manuscripts were removed, sold, or destroyed from Constantinople's libraries.
|
Madrasah of Granada and Madrassah Library
|
Granada
|
Crown of Castile
|
1499
|
Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros
|
The library was ransacked by troops of Cardinal Cisneros in late 1499, the books were taken to the Plaza Bib-Rambla, where they were burned.
|
Bibliotheca Corviniana
|
Buda
|
Kingdom of Hungary (1526–1867)
|
1526
|
Ottoman Turks
|
Library was destroyed by Ottomans in the Battle of Mohács.
|
Dissolution of the monasteries and Monastic libraries
|
England
|
England
|
1530s
|
Royal officials
|
The monastic libraries were destroyed or dispersed following the dissolution of monasteries by Henry VIII.
|
Glasney College
|
Penryn, Cornwall
|
England
|
1548
|
Royal officials
|
The smashing and looting of the Cornish colleges at Glasney and Crantock brought an end to the formal scholarship which had helped to sustain the Cornish language and the Cornish cultural identity.
|
Records on Gozo
|
Gozo
|
Hospitaller Malta
|
1551
|
Ottoman Turks
|
Most paper records held on Gozo were lost or destroyed during an Invasion of Gozo (1551) by an Ottoman raid. The raid is said to have "led to the near total destruction of documentary evidence for life in medieval Gozo.
|
Maya codices, Yucatán
|
Maní, Yucatán
|
Mexico and Guatemala
|
1562-07-12
|
Diego de Landa
|
Bishop De Landa, a Franciscan monk and conquistador during the Spanish conquest of Yucatán, wrote: "We found a large number of books in these characters and, as they contained nothing in which were not to be seen as superstition and lies of the devil, we burned them all, which they (the Maya) regretted to an amazing degree, and which caused them much affliction." Only three extant codices are widely considered unquestionably authentic.
|
Raglan Library
|
Raglan Castle
|
Wales
|
1646
|
Parliamentary Army
|
The Earl of Worcester's library was burnt during the English Civil War by forces under the command of Thomas Fairfax.
|
Library of Congress
|
Washington, D.C.
|
United States
|
1814
|
Troops of the British Army
|
The library was destroyed during the War of 1812 when British forces set fire to the U.S. Capitol during the Burning of Washington. This attack was retaliation for the burning of the Canadian towns of York and Niagara by American troops in 1813. Soon after its destruction, the Library of Congress was reestablished, largely thanks to the purchase of Thomas Jefferson's personal library in 1815. A second fire on December 24th, 1851 destroyed a large portion of the Library of Congress' collection again, however, resulting in the loss of about two-thirds of the Thomas Jefferson collection and an estimated 35,000 books in total.
|
Several libraries
|
Mexico City and major Mexican cities
|
Mexico
|
1856-1867
|
Liberal Party (Mexico) troops and anti-clericalists
|
During and after the Mexican Reform War, under the Liberal Party (Mexico) and liberal governments of Benito Juárez Ignacio Comonfort, many convent libraries and Church owned school libraries were sacked or destroyed by Liberal troops and looters, most notably included San Francisco Convent Library, which had over 16,000 books (great majority of them were unique collections of Spanish colonial era productions), the library was totally destroyed. Other important libraries included San Agustín Convent Library, was looted and burned. The Carmen de San Ángel Convent and its library were also totally destroyed (with a few books recovered), other affected convent libraries to different degrees were those of Santo Domingo, Las Capuchinas, Santa Clara, La Merced and the Church owned school Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, among others, all of them in Mexico City. Similar events happened all over Mexico, espcially in major cities. Besides books, other items such as altarpieces, unique collections of colonial period Baroque paintings, crosses, sculptures, gold and silver chalices (often robbed and melted) were also lost. Total estimates place the total of lost books and manuscripts at 100,000 by 1884.
|
University of Alabama
|
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
|
United States
|
1865-05-04
|
Troops of the Union (American Civil War) Army
|
During the American Civil War, Union troops destroyed most buildings on the University of Alabama campus, including its library of approximately 7,000 volumes.
|
Mosque-Library
|
Turnovo, Bulgaria
|
Ottoman Empire
|
1877
|
Christian Bulgarians
|
Turkish books in a library were destroyed when the mosque was burned.
|
Royal library of the Kings of Burma
|
Mandalay Palace
|
Burma
|
1885–1887
|
Troops of the British Army
|
The British looted the palace at the end of the 3rd Anglo-Burmese War (some of the artefacts which were taken away are still on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London) and burned down the royal library.
|
Hanlin Academy Library
|
Hanlin Academy
|
China
|
1900-06-23/4
|
Disputed. Possibly the Kansu Braves, besieging the west of the Legation Quarter, or possibly by the international defending forces.
|
During the Siege of the International Legations Beijing at the height of the Boxer Rebellion, the unofficial national library of China at the Hanlin Academy, which was adjacent to the British Legation, was set on fire (by whom and whether deliberately or accidentally is still disputed) and almost entirely destroyed. Many of the books and scrolls that survived the flames were subsequently looted by forces of the victorious foreign powers.
|
Library of the Catholic University of Leuven
|
Leuven
|
Belgium
|
1914-08-25
|
German Occupation Troops
|
The Germans set the library on fire as part of the burning of the entire city in an attempt to use terror to quell Belgian resistance to occupation.
|
National Archives and Public Records Office of Ireland
|
Dublin
|
Ireland
|
1922
|
Disputed. Poss. deliberately by Anti-Treaty IRA or accidental ignition of their stored explosives due to shelling by Provisional Government forces.
|
The Four Courts was occupied by the Anti-Treaty IRA at the start of the Irish Civil War. The building was bombarded by the Irish Free State Provisional Government forces under Michael Collins (Irish leader).
|
Several religious libraries
|
Madrid
|
Republican Spain
|
1931
|
Anarchists and anti-clericalists
|
In 1931, several groups of radical leftists and anarchists, with the complicit inaction of the Republican government, Burning of convents in Spain (1931 burned down several convents in Madrid. Most included important libraries. Among them, the Colegio de la Inmaculada y San Pedro Claver and the Instituto Católico de Artes e Industrias with a library of 20 000 volumes; the Casa Profesa with a library of 80 000 volumes, considered the second best in Spain at the time, after the National Library and the Instituto Católico de Artes e Industrias, with 20 000 volumes, including the archives of the paleographer García Villada, and 100 000 popular songs compiled by P. Antonio Martínez. Everything was lost.
|
Oriental Library (also known as Dongfang Tushuguan)
|
Zhabei, Shanghai
|
China
|
1932-02-01
|
Imperial Japanese Army
|
During the January 28 incident in the Second Sino-Japanese War, Japanese forces bombed The Commercial Press and the attached Oriental Library, setting it alight and destroying most of its collection of more than 500,000 volumes.
|
Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
|
Berlin
|
Nazi Germany
|
1933-05-??
|
Members of Deutsche Studentenschaft
|
On 6 May 1933, the Deutsche Studentenschaft made an organised attack on the Institute of Sex Research. A few days later, the Institute's library and archives were publicly hauled out and burned in the streets of the Opernplatz.
|
National University of Tsing Hua, University Nan-k'ai, Institute of Technology of He-pei, Medical College of He-pei, Agricultural College of He-pei, University Ta Hsia, University Kuang Hua, National University of Hunan
|
|
China
|
1937–1945
|
World War II Japanese Troops
|
During World War II, Japanese military forces destroyed or partly destroyed numerous Chinese libraries, including libraries at the National University of Tsing Hua, Peking (lost 200,000 of 350,000 books), the University Nan-k'ai, T'ien-chin (totally destroyed, 224,000 books lost), Institute of Technology of He-pei, T'ien-chin (completely destroyed), Medical College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), Agricultural College of He-pei, Pao-ting (completely destroyed), University Ta Hsia, Shanghai (completely destroyed), University Kuang Hua, Shanghai (completely destroyed), National University of Hunan (completely destroyed).
|
Catholic University of Leuven, 1834–1968 Library of the Catholic University of Leuven
|
Leuven
|
Belgium
|
1940-05-??
|
Rape of Belgium by German Occupation Troops
|
Caught fire during German invasion of Louvain, Belgium.
|
National Library of Serbia
|
Belgrade
|
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
|
1941-04-06
|
Nazi German, Luftwaffe
|
Destroyed during the World War II, Operation Retribution, 1941 bombing of Belgrade, on the order of Adolf Hitler himself. Around 500.000 volumes and all collections of the library were destroyed in one of the largest book bonfires in European history. |
SS Cyril and Methodius National Library
|
Sofia
|
Bulgaria
|
1943–1944
|
Bombing of Sofia in World War II by Allied bombing, Allied air forces
|
|
Załuski Library
|
Warsaw
|
Poland
|
1944
|
Nazi German troops
|
The library was burned down during the Nazi suppression of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The burning of this library was part of the general setting on fire of a large part of the city of Warsaw.
|
Lebanese National Library
|
Beirut
|
Lebanon
|
1975
|
Lebanese Civil War
|
The 1975 war fighting began in Beirut's downtown where the National Library was located. During the war years, the library suffered significant damage. According to some sources, 1200 of most precious manuscripts disappeared, and no memory is left of the Library's organization and operational procedures of that time.
|
National Library of Cambodia
|
Phnom Penh
|
Cambodia
|
1976–1979
|
The Khmer Rouge
|
Burnt most of the books and all bibliographical records. Only 20% of materials survived.
|
Jaffna Public Library
|
Jaffna
|
Sri Lanka
|
1981-05-??
|
Plainclothes police officers and others
|
In May 1981, a mob composed of thugs and plain clothes police officers went on a rampage in minority Sri Lanka Tamils (native) Tamil-dominated northern Jaffna, and burned down the Jaffna Public Library. At least 95,000 volumes – the second largest library collection in South Asia – were destroyed.
|
Sikh Reference Library
|
Amritsar, Punjab
|
India
|
1984-06-07
|
Troops acting under Indira Gandhi's orders
|
Before its destruction, the library contained rare books and handwritten manuscripts on Sikh religion, history, and culture. It could have been a desperate act on failure to locate letters or documents that could have implicated the then Indian government and its leader Indira Gandhi.
|
Central University Library of Bucharest
|
Bucharest
|
Romania
|
1989-12-2?
|
Romanian Land Forces
|
Burnt down during the 1989 Romanian Revolution.
|
Oriental Institute in Sarajevo
|
Sarajevo
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
1992-05-17
|
Bosnian Serb Army
|
Destroyed by the shellfire during the Siege of Sarajevo.
|
National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
Sarajevo
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
1992-08-25
|
Bosnian Serb Army
|
The library was completely destroyed during the Siege of Sarajevo.
|
Abkhazian Research Institute of History, Language and Literature, National Library of Abkhazia
|
Sukhumi
|
Abkhazia
|
1992-10-??
|
Georgian Armed Forces
|
Destroyed during the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia.
|
City library
|
Linköping
|
Sweden
|
1996-09-20
|
Lack of evidence for trial
|
After a year of repeated, minor arson attempts against an information bureau for immigrants located in the building, the library is eventually burnt down to the ground.
|
Pol-i-Khomri Public Library
|
Pol-i-Khomri
|
Afghanistan
|
1998
|
Taliban Militia
|
It held 55,000 books and old manuscripts.
|
Iraq National Library and Archive, Al-Awqaf Library, Library of Bayt al-Hikma, Central Library of the University of Mosul and other libraries.
|
Baghdad
|
Iraq
|
2003-04-??
|
Unknown members of the Bagdad population
|
Several libraries looted, set on fire, damaged and destroyed in various degrees during the 2003 Iraq War
|
The People's Library, Occupy Wall Street
|
Zuccotti Park, Lower Manhattan, New York City
|
United States
|
2011
|
New York City Department of Sanitation
|
Over 5,000 books cataloged in LibraryThing were seized.
|
Egyptian Scientific Institute
|
Cairo
|
Egypt
|
2011-12-??
|
Aftermath of street clashes during the Egyptian revolution.
|
A first estimate says that only 30,000 volumes have been saved of a total of 200,000.
|
Ahmed Baba Institute (Timbuktu library)
|
Timbuktu
|
Mali
|
2013-01-28
|
Islamist militias
|
Before the library was burned down, it contained over 20,000 manuscripts with only a fraction of them having been scanned as of January 2013. Before and during the occupation, more than 300,000 Timbuktu Manuscripts from the Institute and from private libraries were saved and moved to more secure locations.
|
Ratanda Public Library
|
Lesedi Local Municipality
|
South Africa
|
2013-03-12
|
Public riots
|
1,807 library books, technological infrastructure including seven patron workstations, a photocopy machine and a large screen television.
|
Libraries of Fisheries and Oceans Canada
|
|
Canada
|
2013
|
Government of Canada headed by prime minister Stephen Harper
|
Digitization effort to reduce the nine original libraries to seven and save $C 443,000 annual cost. Only 5–6% of the material was digitized, and that scientific records and research created at a taxpayer cost of tens of millions of dollars was dumped, burned, and given away. Particularly noted are baseline data important to ecological research, and data from 19th century exploration.
|
Saeh Library
|
Tripoli
|
Lebanon
|
2014-01-03
|
Unknown
|
The Christian library was burned down, it contained over 80,000 manuscripts and books.
|
National Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina (partially)
|
Sarajevo
|
Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
2014-02-07
|
Seven Bosnian rioters suspected of having started the fire; two (Salem Hatibović and Nihad Trnka) were arrested. On 4 April 2014, Salem Hatibović and Nihad Trnka were released (although still under suspicion of terrorism), on conditions that they don't leave their places of residence and abstain from having any contact with each other. Both were also mandated to report to the police once every week.
|
During the 2014 unrest in Bosnia and Herzegovina large amounts of historical documents were destroyed when sections of the Archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, housed in the presidential building, were set on fire. Among the lost archival material were documents and gifts from the Ottoman Empire and Ottoman period, original documents from the 1878–1918 Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as documentations of the interwar period, the 1941–1945 rule of the Independent State of Croatia, papers from the following years, and about 15000 files from the 1996–2003 Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In the repositories that were burnt, about 60 percent of the material was lost, according to estimates by Šaban Zahirović, the head of the Archives.
|
Mosul University libraries and private libraries.
|
Mosul
|
Iraq
|
2014-12-??
|
Ongoing ISIL book burning
|
Book burning.
|
Libraries in Al Anbar Governorate
|
Al Anbar Governorate
|
Iraq
|
2014-12-??
|
Ongoing ISIL book burning
|
Book burning.
|
Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (INION) (partially?)
|
Moscow
|
Russia
|
2015-01-29
|
Unknown.
|
Fire spread to 2000 m² in third Floor. Roof caved in. Additional water damage. Ambient temperature too high for self-freezing of damaged Works. Library contains 14 million books, including rare texts in ancient Slavic languages, documents from the League of Nations, UNESCO, and parliamentary reports from countries including the US dating back as far as 1789.
|
Mosul public library (Central Public Library in Ninawa)
|
Mosul
|
Iraq
|
2015-02-??
|
ISIL book burning
|
8,000 rare old books and manuscripts. Manuscripts from the 18th century, Syriac books printed in Iraq's first printing house in the 19th century, books from the Ottoman era, Iraqi newspapers from the early 20th century.
|