Monday, June 15, 2015

British Library Conference on Rare Book Trafficking

ON 26 JUNE: British Library Conference on Rare Book Trafficking (REBECCA REGO BARRY, Fine Books Magazine).
On June 26, the British Library will host “The Written Heritage of Mankind in Peril: Theft, Retrieval, Sale and Restitution of rare books, maps and manuscripts,” a conference focused on the illegal trading of priceless cultural materials. The full-day seminar, open to dealers, librarians, collectors, auction house staff, security experts, and interested others, may be a response in part to the Girolamini Library thefts that rocked the rare book world in 2014 and more recent suggestions that Middle Eastern regimes are profiting from plundered books and antiquities. (A report last week claims that ISIS is selling ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts online.)

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For the claims about ISIS selling Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts see the link in the article and also here.