During the Taliban's reign, they sought to destroy all pre-Islamic items in Afghanistan. That included famous statues and books. Now Sun Microsystems has joined in an effort with New York University to preserve what's left of the limited but rich written cultural heritage of Afghanistan.
During the Taliban's destructive reign over Afghanistan much of the countries literary heritage was lost. But New York University aims to recover 300-400 books from Afghanistan and preserve them in a digital library. Carol Mandel, Dean of Libraries at NYU says “What we are doing, is creating a capacity to expand knowledge, to know things we didn't know before, to do research in new ways. We assemble a body of research and material that has really been lost to the world and to its own country. NYU staff and students repair and scan the books into computers powered by Sun Microsystems technology. Fifty thousand pages will be available to be accessed for centuries to come.” It’s a valiant effort to preserve the works of Afghanistan's poets and political figures for future generations.
