# Timbuktu Manuscipts and the Efforts to Maintain the Desert

The curator of the Mamma Haidara Memorial Library in Timbuktu, Mali, presented a lecture related to and illustrative of the exhibit "Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu." Though known to African communities for generations, the recognition of these texts by Western academics has created a breakthrough in recent scholarship. Once believed to be based solely on oral tradition, African culture also has been passed down through a rich literary tradition as evidenced by the existence of these manuscripts.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2003
- By: Library Of Congress. African And Middle Eastern Division
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021687639/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021687639?play=1)