Iraq’s National Library and Archive, the country’s largest collection of books and documents, has reopened after being closed for almost three weeks, despite continuing armed clashes in the streets around the building. The library’s senior officials decided to divide the staff into two parts, and members of each will work only three days a week. The aim is to reduce the employees’ exposure to the bullets and shells from militia clashes in the library’s violent Baghdad neighborhood. “We all felt that it was vital to serve our people, regardless of the security situation,” said Saad Eskander, the library’s director general, in an e-mail message to Jeffrey B. Spurr, a Harvard University librarian who has been in close contact with his Iraqi colleague, and who shared the message with The Chronicle.