The National Library of Haiti (BNH; ) is Haiti's legal deposit library, with a collection of approximately 26,000 volumes. It is located in the capital,

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( ; ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Haiti, most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 1,200,000 in 2022 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The me ...

and is the principal library of the city. The current head of the library is Dangelo Neard.

Early history

The first Haitian National Library was established in 1825, during the presidency of

Jean-Pierre Boyer Jean-Pierre Boyer (; 15 February 1776 – 9 July 1850) was one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution, and the president of Haiti from 1818 to 1843. He reunited the north and south of the country into the Republic of Haiti in 1820 and also ann ...

(1818-1843). A cabinet was purchased for the library for 75 gourdes (one Haitian gourde=approx. $20). Later that year about 936 gourdes were spent for the purchase of 444 volumes ordered by Dr. François Fournier de Pescay. This library may have been destroyed during the 1860s, when political clashes saw the destruction of many items of cultural significance in Haiti.

Current library

The current National Library was established in 1939. In the 1950s, then director

Max Bissainthe Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) (1 ...

listed the holdings at 8,300 books and pamphlets. In a brief article, M. Bissainte described the Library's purchase of collections of Haitian historical and cultural materials. These included some rare colonial-era books, maps and lithographs, and several important Haitian journals such as ''La Ronde'' and ''Haïti Littéraire''. However, sometime later three-fourths of the collection "mysteriously" disappeared, possibly during the government of

François "Papa Doc" Duvalier François () is a French masculine given name and surname, equivalent to the English name Francis. People with the given name * François Amoudruz (1926–2020), French resistance fighter * François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire; 1 ...

(1957–1971). Today the Library oversees a network of smaller libraries elsewhere in the country. The Library also functions as the country's bibliographic agency. The first Haitian national bibliography was published in the mid-1950s under Max Bissainthe, and the Library has since produced a number of bibliographies and supplements.

Disasters

During the

2010 Haiti earthquake The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic Moment magnitude scale, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake that struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest (departm ...

, the National Library did not suffer major structural damage. However, an unknown number of items from the collection were lost or damaged. The Library closed for repairs and subsequently re-opened, with a number of improvements and additions to the facilities, such as a new meeting room, which has been made available to young people. During the Haitian crisis, the library was looted by

criminal gangs A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectiv ...

on 3 April 2024. Its director, Dangelo Neard, confirmed that the facility's furniture was stolen and its generator ransacked.

References

{{Authority control

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

Deposit libraries Libraries in Haiti Libraries established in 1939 Libraries established in 1825