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Show I'age 2 b The report is outspoken and is baked upon certain firmly held assumptions which are presented in the report's introductory pages as follows: "1. PL 480 Arabic materials constitute a resource to be used in the national interest. 2. No institution has an innate right to receive PL 480 material, which is provided at public expense. 3. After twelve years of PL 480 all recipients should have . . developed flourishing programs in Arabic studies and library procedures to process Arabic materials effectively. 4. The justification for receiving PL 480 shares is based primarily, if not solely, on the quantitative use made of those materials in terms of number of students and faculty. 5. The relative wealth of an institution, or the size of its .'••". non-PL 480 Arabic collection is not a consideration in the • allocation of PL 480 shares. 6. The intent of the program is to foster an understanding of the modern, contemporary Arab world; therefore, institutions . * engaged in a wide range of disciplines bearing on Middle Eastern • ' problems can make better use of ?L 480 materials than those . . . engaged primarily in medieval, oriental studies." While Jewish Studies are not normally comprehended by the term Middle East, we are including them here as a matter of convenience. Jewish Studies are perhaps properly described as covering an area without easily determined boundaries. It has been suggested that the area for Jewish Studies is the world. Not only are publications found in Yiddish, Hebrew, and other Judeo-dialects but also in English, German, French, Russian, Polish and other major and minor languages, and communities spread over the world, some of which are no longer in existence, are objects of special interest and study. Collections are found throughout the country, but are particularly apparent in the East in such collections as those held by the Library of Congress, the Hebrew Union College, New York Public Library, Jewish Theological Seminary, Harvard's Hebrew Division, the Boston Public Library, and Columbia, to name a few. Twenty-two libraries were recipients of materials through the now discontinued PL 480 program for Israel. There are, all in all, vast resources for this field of study in the United States. A survey conducted by the Committee for Archives and Libraries in Jewish Studies entitled, Exploratory Survey of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies, was prepared by Dr. Harry I. Barron and Abraham Atik, in 1973. This study reveals the following: the demise of PL 480 poses a serious problem, one that cannot be solved by individual libraries; although Israel produces a national bibliography it is considerably delayed in publication and hence, for practical acquisition purposes, Israel lacks a current national bibliography. A large proportion of research material already acquired by x libraries poses extremely serious preservation problems, many materials cannot continue to be used unless they are restored or copied. A noticeable proportion |