In a gesture of good faith, the Chilean government has returned close to 4,000 books that were plundered from the Peruvian National library back in 1881 during the War of the Pacific. Some of these books were written in French, Spanish, Greek and Latin, and date as far back as the 16th century. Some of the treasures returned include a hand written copy of “The History of Peru” by the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, in 1617.

The return of these books is part of ongoing negotiations between the two countries which have had a number of problems over border disputes.

You can read more about this story from an article in the The International Herald Tribune, and from another article in The Santiago Times.

Yale University has agreed to return most of the Inca artifacts it has housed since Professor Hiram Bingham “rediscovered” Machu Pichu and brought back over 4,000 pieces from the site. The collection includes items such as mummies, ceramics, and bones. Bingham “rediscovered” Machu Pichu back in 1911, bringing it to world attention.

Part of this new agreement has been to promote a traveling exhibit with the pieces, which will eventually find a permanent home at a local museum in Cuzco, Peru, scheduled to coincide with the centenary of Bingham’s “finding” of the site. It will also allow a few selected pieces to remain at Yale a while longer for further scientific research.

In the past a many other countries, and native people the world over have struggled to recover items that were taken during periods of colonization and dominance by foreign groups. During the 1990s the USA passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), requiring museums to inventory their collections and consider returning certain items, although this only applies to federally recognized indigenous groups.

The British Museum has had to deal with a number of cases concerning repatriation, but their response has usually been non-compliance with request from countries such as Egypt and Greece.

You can read more about this issue from an article in the BBC concerning the Yale-Machu Pichu case, or from an article in Suite 101 discussing whether repatriation is a passing fad or not. Wikipedia also has an entire index dedicated to repatriation, divided by cultures.

A few days ago the Christian Science Monitor had an interesting article about conservation efforts for bufeos, (also known boto, pink dolphins, or fresh water dolphins). Scientist Fernando Trujillo from the Colombian based Omacha Foundation is behind a five nation project which also includes Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela. Their research hopes to gather information on population numbers and the current state of the species in order to help project it, and to use the bufeo as the poster child for a larger preservation campaign of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers.

Hopefully these efforts won’t be coming too little too late, as was the case just last week with the less fortunate fresh water dolphin in the Yangtze River whose extinction seems to have been confirmed. The Indus, Ganges and Mekon rivers also have fresh water dolphins, the populations of none of which are in good shape.

I’ve been lucky enough to have seen pink dolphin while drifting down the Orinoco river many years ago, but the memories are as fresh as if it had been just yesterday; they really are an impressive sight, and hopefully this charisma will help preserve them and the larger river ecosystem in which they live.

The International Society for the Preservation of the Tropical Rainforest has some more information on pink river dolphins here, so does Project Boto, here. A good book on the subject is the Journey of the Pink River Dolphin by Sy Montgomery.

Boto image by Pasajero on Flickr.

Usually library fundraisers might involved a party, reading event or book sale, but a few libraries have come up with creative alternatives all their own. The National Library of Peru was recently renovated, and now has a functioning pool. The library offers swimming lessons and raises money this way. This method will also attract non-traditional patrons into the library, who will then, hopefully, become regular patrons.

The city library of Vienna is currently running a sex hotline to raise money for their library. Here, Austrian actress Anne Bennent reads erotica in German, both original pieces and translations. The program was organized in collaboration with the Aktionsradius Wien cultural organization. The call cost about 53 US cents a minute, and the library estimates that they already have about 660 minutes worth of calls. You can read more about this projects from the American Libraries Online, the article is here.

It’s all fair when trying to keep libraries afloat!

08.21.07 - The Montana Library Association has found another interesting way of raising money. They are putting out a 2008 calendar called “Montana Book Babes: Librarians Under the Big Sky.” The calendar features real librarians along with a brief bio of each model. Calendars are $20 and can be purchased here.

01.30.08 - Here’s another calendar trying to raise funds, “The Mildly Attractive Men of SLIS” (These funds will be used towards helping library students at USC attend the World Library and Information Congress “Libraries Without Borders: Navigating Towards Global Understanding”, which will take place in Quebec, August 2008.) Cheers to the guys who helped out with this cause!

Image info here.

Today, Martin Strel, became the first person to swim the entire Amazon River. Strel completed his journey in 66 days, and averaged about 52 miles a day. His journey began in Peruvian territory and ended in the city of Belem, just north of Rio de Janeiro, Bazil. Amazingly he had a pretty easy time with the piranhas, crocodiles, anacondas and candirú in the area, but was a bit less lucky in regards to dehydration and sun stoke.

Strel seems to be no foreigner to adventure, having already swum the lengths of the Danube, the Mississippi and the Yangtze rivers.

Image info here.