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Focuses on the conservation project underway at Saint Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai in Egypt. Estimated number of manuscripts at the monastery's library which is the oldest surviving Christian library; Estimated cost of the project.

The article discusses the restoration and study of the Syriac Galen Palimpsest, a manuscript of ancient Greco-Roman physician and philosopher Galen of Pergamon's work "On the Mixtures and Powers of Simple Drugs," noting the manuscript's insight into the origins of medicine. Topics addressed include the translation of the work into the Syriac language, as well as Syriac scholar Grigory Kessel's discovery of missing pages and work on restoring the manuscript.

The article discusses the impact of Islamic insurgent military rule over the city of Timbuktu, Mali on the preservation of historical texts and manuscripts, largely from the 14th century. It addresses efforts to preserve and maintain the manuscripts, the arrival of French and Malian troops to Timbuktu on January 28, 2013, and the impact of Islamist rule on life in the city.

The article reports on the recovery of the manuscript of author Beatrix Potter on the book "The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots" and the plan to release the book to coincide with 150th birthday of Potter in 2016.

The article focuses on the ancient manuscripts which exist in Timbuktu, Mali, and that nation's government's plan to collect them in a library they hope will make the city a center of African historical research. Timbuktu was famed for Islamic scholarship in the Middle Ages but became a forgotten backwater. The building of the library has begun an economic revival.

Revolutionary War battalions in Georgia and South Carolina ordered their casks of food from Mordecai Sheftall, a Jewish merchant in Savannah who was a commissary general for the Continental troops. He kept every receipt, as was his habit, whether he was rationing beef for hospitalized soldiers, hiring a dance teacher for his daughter or tracking down rough fabric to make into clothing for slaves. ''My Ethiopians are almost naked,'' one plantation owner wrote to Sheftall in 1788. About 3,300 of Sheftall's documents, which his family preserved after his death in 1797, have been stored for decades at the American Jewish Historical Society, now part of the Center for Jewish History at 15 West 16th Street in Manhattan. Few military archives from Southern colonies survive, and fewer still from Jewish patriots, said Susan L. Malbin, the society's library director. But scholars could have trouble poring through the Sheftall trove. Much of it is falling apart. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the reopening of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Ceremony to rededicate the archives' grand rotunda; Features of the display for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom; Cost of the renovations; Ultimate purpose of the archives to reshape its image; Plans to open a variety of new exhibition areas; Comments of Marvin Pinkert, the archives' director of museum programming and Catherine Nicholson, a conservationist who worked on the Charters of Freedom.

Reports on the efforts to restore a Torah in Tegucigalpa, Honduras which was damaged by Hurricane Mitch in October 1998. Estimated cost of the restoration; Details on the persons behind the project.

Dwells on the preservation of disintegrating documents and efforts by Barbara Goldsmith in that direction. Causes of disintegration of documents; Scientific methods for their preservation.

Reports on the efforts of scholars at England's British Library to figure out the language and script on 13 birch bark scrolls dating from the first or second century A.D., the oldest known Buddhist writings. Unrolling and flattening the fragile scrolls; Significance for shedding light on early Buddhism and its spread throughout Asia; Remarks of Richard Salomon, a professor of Sanskrit at the Washington University.