Huge Damage of B&H Archive Confirmed by Italian Institute for Restoration

“There is quantitative and huge loss from the damage to the B&H Archive, but we still did not estimate the exact qualitative damage because there was no time. We have proposed some concrete steps to the local experts in order to rescue archive materials”, said in an exclusive interview for Agency Fena, Eugenio Veca from the Central Institute for Restoration and Conservation of Library and Archival Heritage in Rome.

Veca, together with Maria Carla Sclocchi is on a three day visit to B&H, organized at the initiative and support of UNESCO in cooperation with the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Tourism of Italy, to monitor the B&H Archive, which was set on fire during the protests in Sarajevo and to give recommendations to local experts for the urgent rescue of materials that are not completely burned. This institute is one of the leading institutes for restoration in Italy.

He points out that, after the tour of the B&H Archive, three types of material damage are identified- first, documents that are completely burned, second, documents which are partially damaged and third, documents which are damaged by water during firefighting.

“We have advised local experts for the second group of documents, to clean them and later to asses whether copies can be made. For those documents that are destroyed by water, there is a problem of drying them”, he said.

He concluded that the Institute will be available for future cooperation with the B&H Archive and especially for training of people in this area.

(Source: Fena)