This project visualizes the destruction of Palestinian libraries alongside the lives lost on or around the same dates, creating a powerful data-driven narrative that links cultural annihilation with human tragedy.
PROJECT TITLE: Mapping Loss — Libraries and Lives in Palestine
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Libraries are not just repositories of books—they are symbols of memory, culture, and resistance. In Palestine, the destruction of libraries is not an isolated act of war; it represents a broader erasure of heritage. This project visualizes the destruction of Palestinian libraries alongside the lives lost on or around the same dates, creating a powerful data-driven narrative that links cultural annihilation with human tragedy.
RATIONALE STATEMENT: The objective is to create a comprehensive infographic that:
- Maps Palestinian libraries destroyed between 2013–2025.
- Aligns each destruction event with daily death tolls and identifies individuals from the cultural sector martyred on the same date.
- Presents a visual narrative showing the parallel erosion of cultural memory and human life.
WORKFLOW: Data Extraction via Python & Pandas using a script has been developed using Python and the Pandas library to scrape data from the Librarians with Palestine 2024 Gaza Report. This script has:
- Identified library names, destruction dates, and news sources.
- Normalized and exported the scraped information into a DataFrame and then CSV for analysis.
- Custom data set manual CSV entry of dates of loss of cultural institutions, martyr names, and casualty figures.
FURTHER USES: This project will serve as:
- A tool for public education and media engagement.
- A dataset for future researchers studying cultural erasure.
- A memorial artifact that preserves the stories behind destroyed institutions and lost lives.
FILES LIST:
- 2504-week11-librarydataframe.ipynb: Website data scrape of known cultural institutions that existed and are now destroyed in Palestine
- gaza_libraries_2024.csv: Dataframe that includes the list of libraries and all the information that was manually entered.