Visiting the BNRM in Rabat

ESI third year students who specialize in « libraries » were treated to a visit at the Bibliotheque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc on Friday of the week. The beautiful new building was inaugrated in October, 2008 and hosted an international conference in November of the year.




Students toured the rest of the facilities, and enjoyed seeing the periodical room (pictured here) and the audio-visual room. Funding for the library building came from donors the world over, and sound equipment in the ampitheater and the AV room came from Japan. France and Germany also were generous donors.

Tours of the AV room were given by a former ESI student, helping students see real-world applications for the studies they were currently doing.

The gazelle

Since I've been in Morocco, I keep running into references to gazelles. There are insurance agencies with the word in the name, women have the term as part of their user names online, and there's even gazelle-logo'd brand of chocolate -- a gift I received from Hanan when I went to Casablanca last month.

My neighbor who is a rare books cataloger explained that not only is the gazelle a sacred animal in Islam, but it also is the preferred hide used in Muslim medieval book-making. There are some Korans where each page is gazelle skin from the chest of a different animal -- indeed, these are the most expensive and the most precious of these rare and special books.

Moroccans are very generous, and since I've been here, I've received a lot of gifts besides the chocolate. I've received a beautiful two-volume commented Koran translated into French from a student, I've received trinkets and even socks from Fatima, and Hanan bought me these little tagines where I put spices along with a a main de Fatma from the medina.

I'm very lucky to be surrounded by such generous and warm people, and I'm also glad to have finally found the explanation to the question of the Moroccan gazelle. I'll be visiting the BNRM with my students at the end of next week, and am really looking forward to seeing some of these rare books in the national library\s collection for myself.

Aïd moubarak and the Tangers casting call

To celebrate the Feast of the Sacrifice, I went to Tangers. I made sure to be on the train (5 hour trip) on the morning of the feast to avoid certain elements of the festivities.

Apparently everyone LOVES witnessing the slaughter. In the city, it either takes place on the roof or in the basement, or perhaps in a vacant lot, as shown below. Women come of the kitchen, and children gather around for the spectacle.

I arrived in Tangers around 1 pm, to see roving bands of men with bloody white aprons and big knives roaming the streets. They go door to door offering their services. Almost no cars were on the street, making the whole thing even more surreal, like a cross between a Sweeney Todd casting call and a new kind of Halloween tradition that has not been embraced in America.

My plan to avoid most of the killing worked well (after all, I saw Silence of the Lambs, I know I don't want to hear this), but I didn't anticipate how much blood and gore (and the lingering odor of barnyard) would be around into the next day. There was also the troubling question of what to do with unwanted sheep parts, especially the head.

In short, I'm glad to have participated in the limited fashion that I did. But, I admit that as a vegetarian, I'm a little more predisposed to participate in the Feast of the Carrot or the Sacrifice of the String Bean...

Tidying up for the holidays

It's Sunday, and I continue to be in awe of Nadia. My friend's friend's cousin is back, and has succeeded in cleaning all of the blankets (in the tub, stomping on them as necessary), the rugs (in the kitchen using a big tub), and the floors all without telling me that the butagaz was out and that she didn't have access to warm water.

Getting the house cleaned up before the holidays (and holiday visitors) seems like a great idea. The high Muslim holiday is upon us in two days, and I can hear the various sheep of my neighbors in the courtyard behind my apartment. After Tuesday, there will be no more baaa's.

I've managed to put a strand of lights around a fir tree-shaped clock and have put presents around it for now. It's getting festive, indeed.

Nadia won't be back next week, but will come the following Sunday to help clean and to cook a little. I hope my concierge and his wife are a little nicer to her next time -- they really gave her the run-around this morning.

The National Documentation Center in Morocco

Yesterday, I had the good fortune to visit the fourth (and final!) OCLC member library in Morocco: The Centre National de Documentation (le CND) in Rabat.

The CND is a sister institution to the library school where I teach. It is the documentation center of the country, meaning that, among other things, it collects and makes accessible all grey literature generated in the diffrernt Moroccan ministries.

A number of additional scanning projects are underway. Some pretty high-tech equipment is being used to scan, throughout the CND, thousands of documents per day.

Like the library school (ESI), the CND is attached to the Haut-Commissariat au Plan. It also has a printing facility. One of the print-shop employees posed with a relic of a printing machine --many newer materials are available in the facilities to meet their printing needs.

They also had a server room filled with machines. Fitting with their "Zéro papier" goal, much is going online, and will be stored in-house.

Mr. Solbi was kind enough to show me around, and I am very grateful to him for the comprehensive visit and the good conversation at lunch. Mr. Solbi is a very thoughtful and intelligent man -- he's done a very impressive job at the CND. Single-handedly, he's changing the information landscape in Morocco, and I'm honored to have made his acquaintance.

Humidity in Morocco

The French have a trick to keep their baguettes from going stale overnight -- they wrap them in a dishcloth and leave them on the counter. If left out unwrapped bread goes hard; if kept in a plastic bag or in the fridge it goes chewy. The bread-keeps in some American kitchens serve a similar function.

Last night was a cold and rainy night. I wrapped my baguette after dinner, and left it in a bag so that the non-paying (read: crawling) residents, whom I have not seen in weeks, aren't tempted to come back for a late night snack. I hung the bag on a doorknob so that it was open, allowing air to circulate to keep the bread fresh.

This morning, I got the baguette out for breakfast. First of all, the towel was damp, as if it had just come out of the spin cycle of the washing machine. The bread had acted as a giant sponge, soaking in the humidity of the air, and was completely soggy -- as if it had been in standing water. I guess it just doesn't get humid like this in France, where the technique was invented.

On Saturday morning, in the cold of the gym, I noticed that I was steaming during my workout. It felt like being in a cave on a summer hiking trip. While making soup later on, I could see my breath in my kitchen.

And although it's not related to the humidity per se, I've noticed that my students don't take off their coats in class. I'm the only one NOT wearing a coat. As a child, I wasn't allowed to wear one indoors. Time to remember that I'm not in France or in the United States. Next step: figure out how the Moroccans keep their bread from going bad overnight when it rains.