I should clarify, Richard Minsky forwarded the link to a French article,
I tossed it in google translate and it was me who forwarded it here.

Angie

On 12/19/2011 08:08 AM, Angie Cope, American Geographical Society
Library, UW Milwaukee wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Institut d'Egypte library burned near Tahrir square clash
> Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:19:03 -0500
> From: Richard Minsky <[log in to unmask]>
>
> http://www.liberation.fr/monde/01012378369-l-institut-d-egypte-fonde-par-bonaparte-est-parti-en-fumee
>
>
> Translated using google translate
>
> The Institute of Egypt founded by Bonaparte went up in smoke
>
> Close to Tahrir Square, the Institute of Egypt founded by Napoleon
> Bonaparte, burned during clashes between demonstrators and security
> forces, is a ruin where priceless archives and historical works are gone
> in smoke.
>
> Sunday, volunteers were trying, through the barred windows of the ground
> floor, to get inside the building a few pages torn or heavily charred
> books to store them in plastic bags.
>
> "We're trying to save what we can of these historical documents. The
> building may collapse from one moment to another, "says Olfa, a young
> woman who meets a paper bag partial ash.
>
> "We will hand them over to authorities" before they are completely
> destroyed or stolen, for its part provides Momtaz, who came with other
> picking up scraps of paper.
>
> But around them teenagers playing with pages that are scattered on the
> sidewalk, or soaking in pools of water.
>
> And around, where clashes continue between anti-government protesters
> and military police, no one seems to make much of these precious
> documents reduced to ashes.
> Institute founded in 1798 by Bonaparte
>
> Smoke continued to be released Sunday on the eve of the building on fire
> in circumstances not specifically determined. The army is involved
> petrol bombs thrown by protesters, but this version is disputed.
>
> The exterior walls, blackened around the windows, are still standing but
> the roof and floors collapsed. The interior is nothing but a pile of
> charred rubble from which emerge fragments of shelves or pieces of
> bindings.
>
> The Institute was founded in 1798 during the expedition of Napoleon
> Bonaparte to Egypt in order to advance scientific research. Its current
> building, which dates from the early twentieth century, home to some
> 200,000 books, some rare, particularly relating to the history and
> geography of Egypt.
>
> Among his most precious volumes of an edition of the monumental
> Description de l'Egypte, the sum of knowledge about this country made by
> the scholars of Bonaparte's expedition, which have been destroyed,
> according to the Egyptian press.
> "A disaster for science"
>
> The Ministry of Culture requested an inventory of the damage, when the
> situation in the area of ​​Tahrir permits.
>
> "It fills me with sadness and dismay. This is a huge disaster for Egypt
> "told AFP Raouf el-Reedy, a former Egyptian ambassador to Washington and
> a member of the Institute.
>
> "This institute is part of the shared history between France and Egypt,"
> said the archaeologist Christian Leblanc, who is a member too.
>
> The Minister of Culture Shaker Abdel Hamid described the fire "disaster
> for science," and announced the "formation of a committee of specialists
> in the restoration of books and manuscripts when security conditions
> permit."
>
> "The building contained very important manuscripts and rare books which
> it is difficult to find the equivalent in the world," he said, referring
> to efforts involving "youth revolution, the Supreme Council of Culture
> and restaurants to save what can be. "
>
> The Minister of Antiquities, Mohamed Ibrahim, said in a statement that
> he would ask the French authorities to contribute to the restoration of
> the building.