Today was a significant day for the British Library Pilot Project with
reference no: EAP269:
“Preliminary survey of Arabic manuscripts in
Djenne, Mali, with a view to a major project of preservation, digitisation and
cataloguing”.
Here I am seen in the midst of the Djenne notables who make up the Djenne Library Committe, and you will just glimpse Abdel Kader Haidara from Timbuktu peeking out behind me. This potentially great project can be said to have been launched today. More about this later of course.
But at the moment Hotel Djenne Djenno, where Haidara is staying, has turned into a crossroads for Djenne Islamic dignitaries who file past, studiously avoiding the bar area, reminiscent of the Wise Kings of the East, wearing their great boubous and bearing gifts of legs of mutton, chickens etc for the great Malian manuscript expert of Timbuktu.