Adel Kader Haidara has spent his life as a librarian, collector and scholar. He spent over fifteen years consolidating ancient manuscripts and building facilities in Timbuktu. A center of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had been kept in personal homes, farms and villages, Haidara consolidated them in state of the art facilities for restoration and preservation. Then Al Qaeda showed up and started taking over cities and changing the way of life. Timbuktu was overthrown and Haidara realized these manuscripts and volumes were at risk. He organized the operation to sneak 350,000 volumes to safety. Yes, I didn't add an errant 0, we are talking about an enormous job that put the personal safety of participants at risk.
Like many librarians, Haidara answers lots of questions and is sneaky as hell. No doubt about the bad-ass.
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