{"word_count": 138, "character_count": 983}
&#60;![CDATA[National libraries and museums provide the material from which national identities are                built. There are other sources, too -- myths, ceremonies and the other forms of culture studied by                anthropologists. But complex societies have been through so much that their history requires constant                reassessment. Destroy the documents, and you will damage the collective memory, the sense of self that                derives from the ties that bind a people to their ancestors. Libraries and museums are not temples for                ancestor worship, but they are crucial for the task of knowing who you are by knowing who you were.                That kind of knowledge must be continuously reworked. Destroy the possibility of replenishing it, and you                can strangle a civilization. The article by Princeton historian Robert Darnton on the destruction of the Baghdad National Library is worth to be read in full.]]&#62;