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Show Page 20 Middle_Ea_s£ There are approximately eighty private and public colleges and university libraries in the United States holding MiddJe East materials. University libraries possess the bulk of these resources. To these must be added the important collections of several public libraries and particularly those of the Library of Congress. Sixteen libraries in the United States hold more than fifty percent of all Middle Eastern materials with the South inadequately represented in this area of international education. Of manuscript resources, critical to the study of the classical Near East, American libraries hold about 18,000 Arabic, Persian and Turkish items; some 10,000 of these being In the Princeton Library. In addition, a recent survey by the Middle East Librarians Association indicated that more than 500,000 volumes in Arabic, Turkish and Persian are held by the major libraries in this country. The increasing interest in the Middle East, which began in earnest after World War II, has led to the United States becoming a major center of Middle Eastern Studies and to the development of these library resources. This impressive growth, however, is somewhat misleading if we compare Middle Eastern resources to those supporting other area programs. Furthermore, Middle Eastern Studies have not yet achieved a place in the American educational system commensurate to that area's cultural, political and economic importance in the present day world. It is paradoxical that in recent months, as signs of improved Arab-U.S. relations became apparent, federal and foundation support for Middle East Studies has faltered.* As a result of the upsurge of interest in Middle East Studies following World War II conditions in this field had improved noticeably by the end of the 1960's. The PL 480 program was initiated in 1962 and this was followed by the establishment of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) in 1966, and of the Middle East Librarians Association in 1973. The Middle East Studies Association's library subcommittee has examined the many problems involved in Middle East librarianship, in particular the question of cooperation between MESA and the American Library Association as well as the desirability of developing a Middle Eastern Union Catalog and a Union List of Serials. In addition, the contribution of the Near East Section of the Library of Congress to Middle East librarianship is impressive. The 1974 meeting of the Middle East Librarians Association will conduct a one-day workshop on the problems of cooperative librarianship. There is a need In this field for improvement in the bibliographical control of material. Publications from the Middle East, for a variety of reasons, are not evenly acquired, and libraries, in spite of the many benefits from PL 480, face many real difficulties in acquiring books from the Middle East. Four major locations are used in these acquisition efforts: Cairo, Teheran, Beirut, and Istanbul. Particular difficulties confront those libraries seeking materials in North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. The *Shapley, Deborah - "Middle East Studies: Funding Wilts as Arab-U.S. Friendship Flowers," in Science, v.185, no. 4145, July 5, 1974. \ |
