PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s central archives in the provincial capital that holds a treasure trove of rare manuscripts, historic documents and papers has been the victim of criminal neglect, mishandling and mismanagement. The Peshawar Public Library and Archives, designed by known architect Nayyar Ali Dada, is a fascinating building. But enter the building and the spell is broken by a somewhat chaotic scene of mismanaged notice-board with announcements unrelated to a library, cartons, sacks, old donated books scattered all around, giving it the look of more of a warehouse than a library.

New books were still lying outside in cartons outside the Chief Librarian’s office while the weeding section was full of pink sacks stuffed with government documents waiting to be sorted out.

Perhaps, the Directorate of Archives and Libraries, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has the largest collection in the country. With record from as early as year 1849, including books (140,000), publications (35,000), original files (45,000), magazines (25,000) and old newspapers (600,000) – frequented by students, scholars and researchers – the public library and archives looks like a mess the way the old rare books and publications are being managed there.

Peshawar public library looks like a mess the way rare publications and books are kept there

The archives and library has a treasure of historic expeditions, official reports, letters, gazetteers depicting important events of the time like kidnapping of Ellis by Ajab Khan Afridi, murder of Dr Khan Sahib, Durand Line, Pakhtunistan Tehreek, Letters of Quaid-i-Azam, ‘Tareekh-i-Peshawar’ by Ram Gopal Das, first administrative report of NWFP and many more precious publications, books and magazines. However, those who handle such precious material apply no rules, and mismanage and even mishandle these rare records, sources said.

Catalogue of old, rare books is also not available. There seems no way to know which precious book or record is lying where inside the iron cupboards and the shelves. These books are not issued to visitors, but books have been simply taken away in the past and never returned, says a source.

Officials willy-nilly accepted the fact that in the past governors and ‘high-ups’ have taken away books. Refraining to name any of them, they shared how once a dog owned by a governor chewed an old book of the library.

Such is the state of affairs that an unsatisfied employee in an effort ‘to preserve a book’ interestingly took it away because perhaps he felt the rare book would be lost if he let it remain in the library. The inquiry is going on against the employee, but when and to whom has other books like ‘Tareekh-i-Pukhtun Afghan’ written by Haji Khyal Mohammad Afridi been issued is not known. Another book “Tehreek-i-Azadi-i-Sarhad” written by Allama Yousafi has been issued for the last three years, but to whom that is not known, according to the sources.

The issuance duration is only two weeks, but with low fines and lacking implementation powers to penalise often the books go missing, the sources said. Fighting climate change, natural disasters and insects, the archives have also been facing the lack of care as some old books are in tatters whereas the staff is short. The sources said that for a long time a peon was acting like in-charge of the newspapers section who knew nothing about the care of the old papers. They said that it took huge effort to clean the section.

Those managing the affairs since 2001 have not been able to digitalise the library so far. Work on digital library has been initiated, an official said, but new staff with IT knowledge was yet to be hired.

A source called the preserved old books and publications a ‘hidden treasure’ which was not properly catalogued manually.

Most staff at the archives and library is not aware of the procedure and protocol in handing over and taking over this ‘treasure’. Often there are verbal orders and no way of fixing responsibility when a book is ‘taken away’ by someone.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2015