Centuries-old Islamic manuscripts rest in the hands of a local archivist in this photograph from Timbuktu, Mali. Home to over 400,000 rare manuscripts, the city of Timbuktu has been a center of Islamic scholarship and book production throughout history.

The careful handling of these treasured objects, with their brittle and stained pages, shows the effort necessary to conserve and care for them. Camara’s images of Timbuktu convey the difficult and ongoing work of preserving cultural memory—an urgent need given the country’s current political unrest.