Dan Brown, author known for being the creator of "The Da Vici Code", has decided donate € 30.000 to a Dutch library whose collection of ancient manuscripts has helped inspire some of their stories best-selling suspense.
The donation to the Ritman Library in Amsterdam, also known as the Hermetic Philosophical Library, will go to the digitization and preservation of the core of its collection, allowing the texts to be consulted online by the public. The library currently has about 4.600 manuscripts and books that were printed before 1900, and approximately 20.000 printed after 1900. These manuscripts cover topics including alchemy and mysticism.
Dan Brown has visited the library on several occasions while writing some of his best-selling novels: "The Lost Symbol" and "Inferno."
"It is a great honor to play such an important role in this preservation initiative that will make these manuscripts available to the public."
In a video available on Youtube, where he appears behind a revolving bookcase in his personal library, Brown commented that he had always been fascinated by mystique and that one of the largest repositories of books and texts on this subject on Earth was the Ritman Library in Ambsterdam.
“They are currently on an audacious mission to digitize and preserve a large part of their collection, and I am very honored to play a small role in this process. I look forward to the day when people around the world can access these manuscripts. "
The library hopes that its main collection of manuscripts will be available online next spring, in 2017.
Library Director Esther Ritman said that thanks to Brown the dream of the library reaching the entire public was becoming a reality.
“This library is a treasure house for the human mind. It is a place where books engage with people. It is a place where wisdom and traditions come together in the river of life. This bookstore is the place where science, spirituality and society meet. It is a true embassy of the open mind, a home for all who seek it and offers inspiration and power of thought. It is a place where Dan Brown found and offered inspiration. "
"Thanks to him we can digitize the entire core of our library's collection"