Copyright 1981 MELAjrodgers/MELANotes/MELA... · the middle east librarians' association occasional papers in middle eastern librarianship number 1 edited by david h. partington

THE MIDDLE EAST LIBRARIANS' ASSOCIATION

OCCASIONAL PAPERSIN

MIDDLE EASTERN LIBRARIANSHIP

NUMBER 1

EDITED BYDAVID H. PARTINGTON

Copyright 1981 MELA

MELA, the Middle East Librarians' Association, isa private, non-profit, non-political organizationof librarians and others interested in those aspectsof librarianship which support the study of or dis-semination of information about the Middle East.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Middle East Librarians' Associationgratefully acknowledges a generous contributiontoward the publishing costs of this first issueof Occasional Papers made by the Harvard UniversityMiddle East Center through Professor Dennis Skiotis.

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INTRODUCTION

The Middle East Librarians' Association wasestablished in 1972 to meet a need felt by a num-ber of individuals involved with Middle Easterncollections in American libraries for an organiza-tion that would focus attention upon a range ofproblems — from the practical and technical tothe intellectual and speculative -- with the expec-tation that the sharing of professional concernswould lead to improved library service for thepromotion of scholarship. Toward that end, MELAholds annual meetings and publishes MELA Notes,which conveys items of current interest to the mem-bership.

The annual meetings have occasionally broughtforth papers worthy of preservation in a durableformat. Now, with this first issue of OccasionalPapers, MELA initiates a continuing series toconvey studies produced by its members to widerreaches of the library world.

Issue no. 1 of Occasional Papers contains allthe papers presented at the annual meeting in Novem-ber, 1979, held at Salt Lake City. Missing is atechnical presentation on the impact of AACR II,delivered by Ms. Frances Morton of the Library ofCongress, and a briefing paper on the Near EastUnion Catalog by Dr. George Atiyeh, also of theLibrary of Congress. Future issues of the OccasionalPapers may or may not reflect MELA's annual program.

The Salt Lake City program was designed so thatpapers were presented on the three perennial areasof professional library concern: technical services;collection building or acquisition; and reference.In addition, Dr. Veronica Pantelides submitted apaper that addressed the issue of library schooleducation and its applicability to Middle Easternlibrarianship, and Mr. James Pollock, the first andnow retired editor of MELA Notes, provided insightsinto the nature of our professional calling.

David H. PartingtonCambridge, Mass.October 22, 1980

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CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . iii

What is a Middle East Librarian?James W. Pollock . . . . . . 1

The Computer as Romanizer,Chris Filstrup . . . . . . . 7

Problems in Armenian Collection DevelopmentAnd Technical Processing in U.S. Libraries,

Gia Aivasian . . . . . . . 16

Persian Publishing and Persian CollectionsIn U.S. Research Libraries, With a PartialSupplement to Iraj Afshar's Bibliographyof Bibliographies for Persian Studies,

'Abbas Sepehri . . . . . . . 35

Current Problems in the Acquisition ofLibrary Materials from Turkey,

Robert F. Zeidner . . . . . . 58

Problems of the Middle East SpecialistIn Small Libraries,

Brenda Bickett . . . . . . . 64

Bibliographic Instruction for Studentsof the Middle East,

Francine McNulty . . . . . . 67

Toward Bibliographic Control of theArabic Literature of the New World,

Fawzi Abdulrazak . . . . . . 74

The Role of the Library School in theCareer of the Middle Eastern Librarian,

Veronica S. Pantelidis . . . . 79

Non-Print Resources for Study ofthe Middle East,

Marsha McClintock . . . . . . 86

IV

CONTRIBUTORS

Fawzi Abdulrazak is the Arabic Language Specialistin the Middle Eastern Department, Harvard CollegeLibrary. Mr. Abdulrazak is the author of ArabicHistorical Writing (1974- ).

Gia Aivasian is the Head of the Armenian Collectionin the Research Library, University of Californiaat Los Angeles.

Brenda Bickett is the Arabic Specialist in the Uni-versity Library, Georgetown University, Washington.

Chris Filstrup is Head of the Oriental Division,New York Public Library.

Marsha McClintock is the Middle Eastern Librarian,Ohio State University

Francine McNulty is the Middle Eastern Cataloger,Middle Eastern Department, Harvard College Library.

Veronica Pantelidis is professor of library science,East Carolina University, Greenville, N.C., and isthe author of two major bibliographies: Arab Educa-tion, 1956-1978; and The Arab World, Libraries andLibrarianship, 1960-1976.

James W. Pollock is Head of the Near East Collection,Indiana University Library.

'Abbas Sepehri is Head of the Middle East Collection,University of Texas, Austin.

Robert F. Zeidner (Col.) is a member of the MiddleEast Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

What Is A M i d d l e Eas t L i b r a r i a n ?

The word "caboose" is intriguing to me. I firstmet it as the name of one of the cars on a real ormodel railroad. As a motorist I know it is thesecond most important part of the train to watch for.As a young Arabist I noted the smiling grimace thatan older Egyptian friend made when I used the word inhis shop. Then there is the venerable old personalname entry we have, spelled with a "Q" in romaniza-tion. Lately, I looked in an Arabic dictionary tosee why my friend had once put his hand over his face.A nightmare--that is the meaning!

Now these concluding words from your poverty-stricken servant, the possesser of a nightmare--rAbdak al-Faqir al-Shaykh Abu al-Kabus. And ourtopic is a question to which I give answer.

Question: What is a Middle East Librarian, orWho are We?; answer: The Film and The Curtain.

After this great day of review I am proud of myjob in Middle East Librarianship. The mental paradeof your many research questions and your technicaland public interests has recruited my thoughts. Younotice that I have joined up and am capering alongout of step behind the orderly lines you have drawn.Other people's thinking, you see, always turns myhead, to see where the action was. That is why thislibrarian wants to come to MESA, and why I was soglad to heat up the water when young MELA took herfirst bath in public, watched by other approving arealibrarians from all our four coasts. MELA is stillvery young as the calendar flips. But is it not truecomrades, watch dogs and work dogs that we are, oneyear with us is like seven with anyone else, and weare therefore riper and wiser than we seem? Ay

Next week you may find on your desk a letterfrom the University of Chihuahua asking your help infinding a good Middle East librarian. What will youlook for in the position description? To use theknife-thrower's jargon, is the description "on target"as a precise outline? Or, is the teaching and bookprogram and librarian's salary founded and funded onquicksand money from the Gulf of Ben Adam located

somewhere East of Suez? Why, you will think, mustthe librarian be able to speak conversational Ber-berese in order to help patrons who otherwise do notcomprehend? Few of us would try to fit ourselvesinto that profile, on the reasonable suspicion thatsomeone else was being vaguely described, and alsobecause we do know what Middle East librarianship isabout.

Today we have mentally grasped many of the con-trol handles by which our jobs are operated. Allareas of the total vocation have been freshly scrub-bed. As we reflect on the situation, (here there isa change of metaphor) I'm sure we all feel that wehave uncovered a number of tender but glowing-with-health-and-growing edges to our job perspective. Byyour leave I would like to continue using and chang-ing metaphors to sketch my impression of Middle Eastlibrarianship—of who we are. The theme is posed asa question, and my reply only creates more questionsand problems I dare say. My answer to the question"What is a Middle East Librarian?" is that we are—The Film and The Curtain. Briefly translated, we arethe personification of our library's records, and weare the interpreter standing between civilizations.

The African Studies Archivists and Librarianshave just finished their meeting in Los Angeles.Their great continent has individual societies nearlybeyond number that are developing gradually from oralto written cultures. I think a living vestige oforal tradition, one that is kept in use among us byverbatim legal records and journalistic interviews,is in the question and answer or dialogue formats wefind in religious literary writings. Middle Eastlibrarians have the books of answers or opinions onreligious law along with the questions that calledthem forth. Theology and philosophy stimulate thewriting of commentaries in the "He said"/"I say" for-mat, or in the pattern of "They may argue"/"But wereply" polemics and apologetics. And literary pro-duction in poetry and prose is full of dialogue withreal or symbolic characters. Our libraries are therepositories of these records of conversation or mono-logue. Carefully composed statements in free senten-ces of prose or measured and rhyming poetry are firstof all for reciting by the mouth of a speaker to theears of those who hear. After that the statementsare written down and preserved in more or less rareand precious books. What I say now is for you; andwhat you have said today is for me. We have today'srecord on paper, a thin sheet of mixed plant fibers.More importantly and to the point, we have the pro-ceedings permanently stored in the electronic filmpathways of our brains. Conscious replay of these

films is of course slow and faulty, because by habitwe rely so much on written records; but the storagefunction is active and orderly. With practice, andwith our attention expanded and focussed by interestin our work, our librarian's role as the film can be-come more useful and satisfying.

By this I don't mean that we should become walk-ing microfilms or encyclopedias. No, my friends, noteven a walking card catalog! But we do know the ac-cess points to our reference sources and catalogs.We should also know how to interview a patron needinghelp, and be able to locate in his mind just what hewants to say. I have found, to my surprise, thatsome patrons go away happy with a minimum of factualgain but a maximum of healthy mental exercise in thequestion and answer interview. Access is improvedto their own stored information, so that their powerof analysis and evaluation is freed up for action.No longer does the student's mind seem like an auto-mobile motor embedded in grease hardened by a coldwinter's night.

Let us pursue the metaphor of our role as thefilm personification a bit further. Will one ofyou here please carry this recording tape-end to theentrance of this meeting room? (Rest of tape on reelis held by speaker.) Thank you. There in represen-tation you see the first parent of our race, goingback long before written or grammatical speach de-veloped, an actual person to whom I myself am relatedat this moment. And for each of you there is adirect line to our first parent also, but individu-ally different from my direct line. On each linethere is recorded the experiences, judgments and feel-ings of the past. My record is actively, electrical-ly and wonderfully influenced by your records, aseach of us can say. And I do not stop there, but Ibelieve there is much more that is available, andcredible to be said. Limits to perception and under-standing I think are often self-imposed. In our con-versation with patrons, with each other, and with thewriters and voices of the past, the only limits toperception and communication of meaning are theproved wisdom that protects society's general wel-fare, and the swift movement of the film on its reelof time. (Thank you for holding the tape. You mayrelease it now. (And it is rewound.)) It is pos-sible to do so, and I think we all should rightfullythink of our memories and minds as being part of awell-functioning data base more useful and valuablethan any that shall be invented.

Now we will change the scene and the metaphor.Before us is a curtain, the curtain, which is ourrole as the interpreter standing between civiliza-

tions. In this role we must become a "see through",opening curtain, instead of a firmly closing andopaque ornamental wall.

Some time ago a friend working in Beirut was inthe States lecturing. He stopped with us for a mealand visit and while in our home he opened a curtainfor us that had veiled a piece of our antique furni-ture in mystery. It' s a wooden folding chair made inPalestine perhaps eighty years ago. The back andfront foot-support is one undulating frame of fivestrips of one-by-two-inch-thick wood. The seat andback foot-support of four strips fold up in scissorsfashion or fold down to make a flat solid wood seat.It was once fully decorated with mother-of-pearl,and it has an incised wavy leaf design down eachstrip of wood. Straight across the back, at should-er-blade height under the curved top line there isthis solemn Arabic phrase: "Salamat al-insan" (thewell-being of a person): and no more is written. Iwas curious about its reference, thinking that per-haps there was once a set of the chairs that wouldtogether form a line of poetry or Scripture. Here iswhere my mind was like the cold auto motor slumberingin frigid grease, unable to turn over. This was un-til my friend visited and said, "Do you know theother half of the proverb?" "No_." "Here it is:'Salamat al-insan fl hifz al-lisan' (the well-beingof a person is in guarding the tongue)."

In its original setting we can imagine that aguest might be offered that chair, and on recognizingthe script as half of the familiar proverb, wouldthen be discreet in speech according to circumstances.(As a side note, the Biblical usage in Proverbs 21:23is close to this, but T think has a more inclusivereference: "He who keeps his mouth and his tonguekeeps himself out of trouble.") We were introducedto a bit of Arabic folklore in this proverb, and itreflects a nice way of subtle communication, anopened curtain on a real scene.

As a would-be poet of mean stature, I havenailed together two other rhyming phrases that couldbe worse, perhaps. Understanding the first phrase"Salamat al-insan" as the usual friendly exclamationof sympathy or concern for a person's well-being ina minor illness or injury (you remember the chair'sscissors-like design), we suggest the completion as:... "al-jalis fl hadha al-makan" (Sorry, old chap,whoever sits in this place). And here is a more spe-cific warning: "Salamat al-insan, al-wadif hunaal-?uhran" (To him we hope no woe betides, who setsdown here his own backsides)! As you have already ob-served, these latter musings can neither clarify theproverb's meaning, nor would they dignify the cir-cumstances of a friendly home visit. But maybe I can

still sell them to a cafe owner in Midaq Alley!This little excursion into Proverbia, as the

Latin puts it, and an attempt to locate another say-ing in these Arabic collections ( the one above islisted clearly in Anis Furayha's collection) mademe wish for a full study and indexing of this body ofcompact wisdom. What an aid to understanding of theArabic civilization it would be, a library referencetool of first importance.

The Qur'an and the Hadith literature are basicto Islamic civilization, and quotations from thesepermeate its written and spoken communications. Bothof these monumental collections are analyzed in con-cordances now. The final index volume of the Hadithconcordance set must be nearing completion.

On cards in a vast file in the former School ofOriental Studies of the Hebrew University in Jerusa-lem there exists a far advanced Concordance to Clas-sical Arabic Poetry from the Pre-Islamic Period on-wards up to the Close of the Umayyad Dynasty (750 AD).This project was begun by Professor Joseph Horowitzwho was the School's first director from 1926 to hisdeath in 1931. (See Muslim World 36 (1946) p. 85,as abstracted from an earlier article in New Pales-tine by Walter Fischel.) The Concordance is apparent-ly still growing. And it would be a most worthy pro-ject for publication by the joint efforts of UNESCO,the International Union of Academies, and other in-terested sponsors. Would it not make for peacefulcollaboration in the hate-ravaged Near East? A greatcurtain opening of understanding between peoplesshould come of this project when the time is right.Publicity and pressure for it I believe are necessaryfactors in bringing the time closer.

We have indexes to Arabic, Hebrew and Persianperiodical files being published and added to our col-lections. Prior to 1974 our English counterpartswere working on an Index Arabicus that indexed 50Arabic periodical titles. J.D. Pearson reported tous at our first workshop on cooperation at Cambridge(Mass) that it had gone to a Beirut printer. We mustinquire as to its status. Pearson's good suggestionsneed our Association's formal attention, I think.The Arabic Script Union List at Michigan and the NearEast National Union List project at the Library ofCongress deserve our support and aid. The prepara-tion and use of these and other new bibliographicalaids will make our role as the curtain easier.

The film has to do with our everyday memory andthinking apparatus. It is a self-contained unit withmany as yet undiscovered capacities. We do know thatthe film has the capacity to interface with other

film units of different language patterns. And ithas the capacity to activate and manipulate the toolscollected on our library shelves. At this point webecome the curtain. Ours is a service to patronsthat opens up for them a clearer comprehension oftheir own field, and makes it possible for them toadvance in both research and theory.

Now I give you these pictures in oral tradition.They are an impression of what our task is and who weare doing it.

James W. Pollock

The Computer As Romanizer

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

As an instrument of standardization and centrali-zation, the computer is reshaping the library land-scape. Microfice COM sets replace card catalogs;CRTs make obsolete long shelves of bound indexes; pro-grammers displace filers and searchers; magnetic tapesdisemploy catalogers; and everywhere command strate-gies, delimiters, and fields spring from the teeth ofthe digital dragon.-'- Library literature is repletewith scenarios of an increasingly paperless informa-tion network and with warnings that unless librariansembrace the new technology their jobs will be put topasture by an aggressive, for-profit information in-dustry. Whatever the limits of quantified informa-tion storage and retrieval, electronic technology ispushing the library world into unfamiliar territory.

The New York Public Library (NYPL) was one ofthe first large research libraries to close its cardcatalogs and to open a computerized book catalog. Thelink of the library's catalog records to its author-ity file is a good example of the rigor a computercan bring to bear on standardizing catalog informa-tion. To appear in the book catalog, an access pointmust first be established on the authority file. Per-sonal and corporate names, topical subjects, seriesand other access words are searched in the authorityfile to make a match. If the computer cannot find amatch, the finding element is barred from the catalog.For example, if the Library of Congress (LC) adds adeath date to a personal name, a MARC record includingthat name will not be accepted until the authorityfile is changed. A correction of the authority fileautomatically corrects the personal name form everytime it appears in the book catalog as an accesspoint. This linkage affords centralized control of alarge and complex file.

By using the same tags as MARC, NYPL's automatedsystem makes optimum use of the cataloging done cen-trally at LC. The library ' s computer takes a MARC

record, reformats it to fit local catalog requirements,and produces a print-out to which a cataloger adds aclassmark and other tagged information, such as Fest-schrift, to which MARC is indifferent. The computersearches all access points in the authority file andestablishes those it cannot match. At present a cata-loger must add cross references and other authoritywork to the established form, but as LC's authorityfile becomes available on magnetic tape even that workcan flow computer-to-computer. For MARC records thecomputer has not totally eliminated human intermedi-aries, but it does utilize the product of a centralcataloging staff (LC's) to reduce drastically localduplication of staff time. And of course, the compu-ter has eliminated a large corps of filers. Managinga large file is child's play for an IBM 370.

For all its efficiency and manipulability, NYPL'sautomated bibliographic system, when instituted in1972, lacked the capability to manage non-Roman scriptlanguages except in transliterated form. Since then,NYPL has saved Hebrew and Cyrillic script languagesfrom romanized display, but all other non-Roman scriptlanguages must still accept total transliteration inorder to see the light of public access. In replacingthe card catalog, the automated file rendered obsoletethe three by five card, a far more flexible format ofwhich Oriental Division catalogers had made skillfuluse in the past. As long as main entry and other ac-cess points were romanized for filing in the union ca-talog, de rigueur at NYPL, a cataloger could write ortype the body of the bibliographic record in any scriptIn this way Oriental language catalogers achieved abalance between the standards of the centralized unioncatalog and the highly pluralistic reality of Asianlanguage materials.

For example, for many years it was Oriental Div-ision practice, for Chinese books, to transliteratemain entry and title (using Wade-Giles), often totranslate the title and imprint, and to hand write theauthor-title ( and sometimes imprint) description inChinese characters in columns running from the rightside of the card to the left. Arabic cataloging wasdone in the same way, with the author-title statementhandwritten under the typed transliteration and/ortranslation. In addition, the Oriental Division main-tained a title card file completely in Arabic scriptand filed by Arabic alphabetization.

By its very nature, the three by five card serveddecentralized interests. It was Melvil Dewey's con-tribution to the Gutenberg application of the myth ofCadmus. As long as it was properly coded for filing,the fifteen square inches of surface was enough fordisplaying all manner of scripts. In closing the cardNYPL threw out the Oriental baby with the bath water.

By disregarding all graphic sysptems other than theexpanded ALA Roman character set, the new system up-set the balance between centralized control of aunion catalog and precise description of diverse ma-terials. At best, full transliteration offers onlyindirect replication of the title page. Without anexact replication as a backup to the romanized accesspoints, a bibliographic record requires a user tomaster the system of phonetic transformation and totrust wholly in the judgment of the cataloger/trans-literator. The catalog becomes a veil, sometimesdiaphanous, sometimes opaque, between the searcherand the searched. The Italian traduttore-traditore,translator as traitor, may be justly altered totrascrivente-traditore, transliterator as traitor.

EAST ASIA

Computerization and its concomitant evil, trans-literation, affect the languages of the Far East,South Asia, and the Middle East differently. Chinese,Korean, and Japanese, all based on the non-alphabeticChinese character, can be changed into Roman charac-ters only at the cost of dense ambiguity. A phoneticvalue such as /chu/ has many possible referrants:pearl, tree trunk, spider, vermillion, bamboo, tohelp, to live, to fuse.... A string of three or morephonetic equivalents is necessary to reduce ambigu-ity. The problem stems from the Roman alphabet'sgrossly inadequate rendering of Chinese phonemes. Tomaintain a Far Eastern catalog, a library must pre-serve the original characters somewhere. At NYPLthis record has been pushed out of the public catalogto the shelf list where Far Eastern script informationis added by hand.

If we liken Far Eastern scripts to an endangeredspecies, the public catalog is the area of intensedevelopment where all elements incompatible with thenew, strictly enforced standards are eliminated. Thecomputerizers act as agents of a central governmentdetermined to streamline the filing system. TheOriental Division shelf list then becomes a refuge towhich the endangered species retreats from the pathof the electronic juggernaut. This situation is alibrary instance of the settler-aborigine dynamic.As life at the center becomes more civilized, olderstyles of existence move to a periphery where theypersist at a simpler level.

Because the consequences of total romanizationare dire, LC has kept materials in East Asian lang-uages out of MARC. According to John Haeger of theResearch Libraries Group (RLG), LC will soon contractwith RLG to develop MARC-compatible hardware andsoftware for Far Eastern materials. The package will

include input, display, and search capabilities inthe vernacular scripts. It is interesting that thelanguage group facing the greatest obstacles to en-tering a machine-readable system has been the objectof the most experimentation and is nearest to beingaccomodated by the new technology.

Programming ideographic languages so that theycan be controlled by a manageable keyboard is a her-culean task. The National Diet Library of Japan andvarious other organizations of Japan and Taiwan areworking on three basic strategies to bring Chinese,Korean, and Japanese under computer control. ' Thefirst uses a large keyboard of approximately 2700keys. About 2000 keys have a one-to-one correspon-dence with the 2000 most common characters. Theadditional keys trigger radicals that can be aggre-gated to compose the ideographic characters not in-cluded in the first set of 2000 as well as kana andRoman alphabetical elements. The second approachfollows a two step phonetic-graphic selection pro-gram. A request is made by a phoneme, in Roman orkana characters, to which there are a number of Chi-nese character equivalents. The keyboard operatorthen selects the correct character for input. Thethird approach follows the traditional Chinese methodof organizing characters by radicals or strokes.Using visual analysis, a programmer assigns a twodigit code to three corners of the character. Eachideograph receives a unique six digit nuirber by whichit can be input, stored, and retrieved.

Although the software is still imperfect, thehardware is ready on a commercial basis. RLG's EastAsia Committee is confident that software problemswill be solved in the next three years and that KARC-compatibility will follow soon after. This effort isbeing financed by grants of 1.2 million dollars fromthe Ford, Mellon, and Hewlett Foundations and theNational Endowment for the Humanities. Originallythe Ford Foundation intended to use the Committee ofEast Asian Librarians (CEAL) as a channel for thismoney, but the group was too dispersed and underor-ganized to sponsor such a large endeavor. When Ilr.Haeger joined RLG in 1979, foundation money followed,enabling RLG to finance a full scale program to com-puterize Far Eastern script languages.

SOUTH ASIA

The status of South Asian languages offers asharp contrast to the work being done on East Asianlanguages. In late 1978, LC announded that it wouldtotally romanize all South Asian language records forinclusion in ?1ARC. This decision included Dravidian,Devanagari, and Arabic script languages. AlthoughLC solicited reactions from the South Asian library

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community to an earlier pilot project, it was appar-ent that LC had made up its mind to scuttle SouthAsian scripts in the attempt to make South Asian ma-terials available on MARC as soon as possible.

Even though a number of South Asian librariansin charge of large collections spoke out against thedecision and persuaded LC to hold thorough discus-sions in January, 1979, the college of South Asianlibrarians was unable to muster a solid and unitedfront against the total romanization decision. Im-portant reasons for this lie in India's own diversity.The Indian subcontinent is a jungle not only of lang-uages but of scripts. Through the Special Foreign Cur-rency program, American libraries collect over twodozen languages in a dozen scripts. The sheer num-ber of scripts is daunting to computerizers, for asolution requires a separate terminal for each scriptor a number of multi-script terminals. English iscertainly one of the most important legacies of theBritish Empire to the subcontinent. In terms of mar-ket value, English language material is the largestcategory received though the Indian Special ForeignCurrency program. It is six times as costly as Hindi,17 times Bengali, 24 times Tamil. English survives,indeed thrives, as the lingua franca for the Indianestablishment. LC's decision to romanize fully allSouth Asian languages in effect extends the tradition,now 150 years old, of English as lingua franca to thescript of the English language as the catalog's letterefranche. Considering the diversity of Indian lang-uage and culture, romanization achieves an astonish-ing degree of order. All those languages, rangingfrom hoary Sanskrit to relative newcomers such as Ma-layalam and Urdu, in one computerized file stand as amonument to computer logic. In effect, LC's decisionsays that for library catalogs Indian printed materi-als that remain non-English will at least have to ac-cept a Western script. The cost of this monolithicarrangement is the total abstraction in the librarycatalog of language from its graphic form. Such afile is at best a finding guide with little researchvalue.

MIDDLE EAST

LC's announcement that it was also seriously con-sidering total romanization for Arabic and Hebrewscript languages elicited a much more united effortby Middle East and Judaica librarians than the SouthAsian specialists could achieve. From the South Asianexperience, librarians in charge of Middle East col-lections learned the importance of recruiting thesupport of library directors and other administrativeofficers. A whirlwind of memoranda and a long session

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at LC persuaded LC to disregard its inclination toshuck the graphic shell from the linguistic kernel.Arguments raised in favor of keeping the mixed for-mat of the LC printed card included: (1) transliter-ation adds vowels to the graphic display of languagesthat leave them unwritten; (2) transliteration of Ara-bic and Hebrew script languages entails interpreta-tion of meaning beyond the traditional responsibili-ty of cataloging; (3) totally romanizing bibliogra-phic records seriously compromises the catalog as aresearch tool.

Arguments in favor of total romanization inclu-ded: (1) computerization of non-Roman script languageswould cost LC a million dollars; (2) access pointsare already in romanized form; (3) readers are ac-customed to romanization schemes and would not findthe loss of information caused by the absence of thevernacular script significant; (4) inclusion of Arabicand Hebrew script materials in MARC would greatly re-duce the cost of cataloging at individual libraries.I think the decision not to move to total translit-eration rested on LC's judgment that economic savingscould not justify the intellectual denigration of thecatalog that is implicit in total romanization andthat computerization of these languages is not asawesome a task as firsbglance had it.

LC's decision to rescue Arabic and Hebrew scriptlanguages from the MARC-spewing maw of the computerleaves Middle East and Judaica librarians on the ten-terhooks of LC's willingness to sustain card produc-tion for titles in these languages after its card ca-talog is officially closed. This means that on theadvent of AACR 2, LC will have to close the old ca-talog, open a new card catalog using cards in thesame mixed format until these languages are computer-ized, then close that intermediate catalog and open athird, computer-produced file. LC faces this threestep entry into computerized cataloging for both FarEast and Middle East languages. By romanizing SouthAsian languages before the advent of AACR 2, LCavoids such an awkward approach. For libraries suchas NYPL that have closed their card catalogs already,the continuation of LC cards in Far Eastern and Kid-dle Eastern languages has little practical consequence.The theoretical stakes in the romanization controver-sy were high, but for a library displaying its hold-ings in a photo-composed book catalog the payoff issmall. Even libraries that will continue card cata-logs must realize that pressure to draw a wider rangeof materials into the MARC fold will increase and thatcard catalogs will become relatively less and lesseconomical.

Because NYPL has lived with an automated filesince 1972, it has taken steps to produce non-Roman

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script display in the new catalog. It has developedthe hardware and software to convert Hebrew and Cy-rillic romanized records into Hebrew and Cyrillicscript in the photo-composed book catalog. By devis-ing one-to-one correspondence between Roman and Ke-brew or Cyrillic characters, NYPL is able to input arecord completely in Roman characters on a standardkeyboard, and, by prefacing the input with an escapemode command for the appropriate language, to displaythe bibliographic record in the original script. Inaddition to bibliographic records that resemble themixed format of the LC printed card, this system alsoproduces a Hebrew title file at the end of the bookcatalog and running right to left. The data arestored according to the binary string of the Romankeyboard character but the display program activatesphoto-composition grids of Hebrew or Cyrillic charac-ters. Though incapable of on-line vernacular scriptinput and retrieval, NYPL's system eliminates theworst aspect of total transliteration. The final,public product reinstates the original script to itsproper place in the catalog record.

NYPL's cataloging system in no way is paperless.Old-fashioned worksheets and more contemporary print-outs flow back and forth between catalogers and thecomputer center like a biblical swarm of locusts.For all Oriental languages and even for Hebrew andCyrillic, the person who inputs the record knows onlythe expanded Roman character keyboard. Hebrew andCyrillic cataloging differs from other non-Romanscript language cataloging only in the use of escapemode commands and final display. Beehive Corpora-tion actually made a dual script, Hebrew/Roman char-acter terminal for NYPL, but it has not been linkedto the bibliographic system. For the near futureat least, all processes prior to catalog display willremain in a transliterated mode.

In the two or three years after LC closes itscatalog, it is vital that librarians presiding overAsian language materials organize sufficiently tokeep control over the quality of centralized catalog-ing of their materials. Over the next decade few li-braries will be content to finance large Asian lang-uage cataloging staffs whose output is largely dup-licated elsewhere. Asian language catalogs must en-ter the main stream of centralized, machine-readablecataloging without the degradation of cataloging stan-dards that will inflict South Asian materials for thenear and even long-term future.

Faced with the greatest technological problems,Far East specialists have made the greatest progressin developing machine-readability. Softened by astrong tradition of anglicization. South Asian li-brarians have presided, however reluctantly, over thefull extension of Roman script to the catalog display

13

of non-English South Asian languages. These librari-ans will have to summon up powerful arguments to pre-vent their libraries from accepting MARC transliter-ated copy.

Middle East librarians face less formidable prob-lems than East Asian specialists, but they lack fund-ing to mount a concerted effort to develop hardwareand software tailored to library needs. Ongoing workon computerizing information in Arabic script is,typically, decentralized. Harvard and the Universityof Texas, Austin, use CRTs to teach Arabic. Bothsystems use an Arabic keyboard and have massage sub-programs that select the correct form of letter ac-cording to content. The Arab League and MoroccanMinistry of Education are working on computerizationas are a number of private firms in England and theUnited States.

At the Middle East Librarians' Association (MELA)meeting in Utah (1979), Pierre MacKay reported on hiswork of adapting a Hewlett-Packard 2645 terminal todisplay Arabic script languages for editing purposes.The beauty of MacKay's program, Katib, is that theterminal alone is progammed for Arabic script inputand editorial display. MacKay uses a standard Romancharacter keyboard following the ISO standard forLatin-letter alphabets to link the terminal to themain frame. The "number cruncher" (as he affection-ately calls the main frame) processes informationcoming from the terminal as binary strings associatedwith a standard keyboard. The main frame remains in-souciant of the peculiarly Arabic script activity oc-cur ing on the periphery. By accomodating the com-plexities of Arabic script display to a 7-bit code,MacKay has engineered an Arabic script terminal com-patible with any main frame programmed according toANSI, ISO, and Federal Information Processing stan-dards. Katib's CRT script display is rudimentary butreadable and includes Persian and Ottoman Turkishvariations. The CRT provides copy for editing, nothard copy printing. A more refined display could beaccomplished with an additional VideoComp programthat would have to be loaded into the main frame.

MacKay's terminal resembles the display programsof NYPL for Hebrew and Cyrillic in that it does notencumber the main frame with programs peculiar to theArabic script. The language specialist does not haveto recruit the services of a programmer to integratethe Arabic script program into the high level lang-uage of the main frame. Both MacKay and NYPL acceptthe Roman character keyboard as the intermediate lang-uage necessary to enter the main frame. In NYPL'scase, this means a great deal of paper work. MacKay'sprogram is inextricably wedded to a particular pieceof hardware, the Hewlett-Packard terminal, which is

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designed to fit any main frame using a standard code.Form and content are inseparable.

Following the lead of the East Asian librarians,the Middle East specialists' first task is to gatherinformation, both from on-site inspection and fromliterature, on computerization of Arabic taking placein commercial, academic, and governmental arenas.I don't think this can be done without freed timeand funding. It may be that MELA can persuade RLG,OCLC, or some other utility to fund this study. Upongathering information about software and hardwarealready available, a task force would have to analyzethese products for their library usability. I amfairly certain that the expertise if not the fullblown product is present. It is simply a matter offocusing technological know-how on the particularproblems of bibliothecal storage and retrieval. Whatwe are really awaiting is institutional initiativethat will press for tangible results. It will beinteresting to see whether MELA can play a centralrole in this gearing up and whether large researchlibraries care enough about the non-Roman languagesof the world to invest in this endeavor.

Chris Filstrup

1. Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media. New York:McGraw Hill, 1964, p. 82 ff.

2. See also MacKay's "Setting Arabic with a Compu-ter," Scholarly Publishing, January 1977, p. 142-150; and his"Computer Processing for ArabicScript Materials" in Les arabes par leurs archives(Collogues internationaux du CNRS, no. 555),p. 197-211.

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P r o b l e m s I n A r m e n i a n C o l l e c t i o nDeve lopment And Technical ProcessingIn U. S. L i b r a r i e s .

In the course of the past ten years or so, manyof the problems in Armenian collection developmentand technical processing in U.S. libraries have beenresolved, some are continually present, and new onesare forthcoming with such novel phenomena as auto-mated shared cataloging which will show Armenianrecords in romanized form.

The single most important factor that lies atthe root of Armenian collection development, proces-sing, and even reference service problems, is theesoteric nature of the Armenian language. Dealingwith Armenian materials is a thorn in the side oflibrary management because these materials cannot bestreamlined into processing routines as can romanalphabet materials. To the Armenian specialist,Armenian materials are both a delight and a night-mare: a delight because one ends up being a selectionofficer, a gifts and exchange librarian, a cataloger(both for monographs and serials) and a referencelibrarian, thus exercising complete control of thecollection and feeling one has an exciting, multi-faceted job; a nightmare because one finds that oneis in charge of a library within a library and istherefore obliged to deal with numerous clerical andhousekeeping tasks side by side with the most intel-lectual and diversified responsibilities called forby the job, and ends up feeling terribly fragmentedand subject to moments of fear for one's sanity.Armenian materials are a problem to the library pa-tron with a knowledge of the Armenian language, whenin the library's catalog/s names and titles are pre-sented in romanized form. Is he a Western Armenianspeaker? Is he an Eastern Armenian speaker? Doeshe know that romanization is based on Eastern Armen-ian phonetic values? Does it occur to him tocheck at the reference desk of the library for thetable of tomanization? A variety of cross-referencestry to cover various approaches to an author's name,but titles have a single entry. Let us now go into

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specific problems in the areas of Armenian collectiondevelopment and processing.

COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT

When a university's curriculum includes an Ar-menian studies program, such a program usually at-tracts students that are interested in Classical andModern Armenian language, in literature, and in his-tory. Furthermore, students in other disciplinesmay be interested in such areas as Armenian linguis-tics, art and architecture, music, folklore and soforth. The university library must be able to supportall these needs. Its Armenian collection — and bythis term I mean Armenian language materials as wellas non-Armenian language materials on Armenian sub-jects — must include early, not so early and currentprinted monographs, periodicals and newspapers. Also,a nice collection of manuscripts — preferably origi-nals, if not, on microfilm or microfiche -- would en-hance the library's prestige and attract scholars.

Armenian studies programs in universities are arecent phenomenon in the U.S. — they have a lifehistory of no more that 15-20 years (at the momentthere are four universities with Armenian programs:Harvard, UCLA, Columbia, and Pennsylvania). The pro-gram at UCLA, for example, had its beginnings in theearly 1960's but the regular program of offering M.A.and Ph.D. degrees in language, literature and historydates from 1969. Consequently, a systematic Armeniancollection development and control in American univer-sity libraries, to my knowledge, do not go much fur-ther back than the early 1960's. There may be one ortwo exceptions.

What is the volume of Armenian publication? Ar-menian printing history dates from 1512. Anythingpublished between that date and 1800 is considered anincunabulum. In this period approximately 1000 titleswere printed^ (in a limited number of copies). Howmany copies of these are now extant in the world isnot known at the present. From 1801 to 1850, some1700 titles were printed.2 i have been unable tolearn the volume of production between 1851 and 1921,but since the Sovietization of Armenia, i.e., 1921until 1977, some 50,000 titles were printed in SovietArmenia alone.3 Currently, the annual publicationrate in Soviet Armenia is 1000 titles in Armenian,Russian and several other languages in 10-12 millioncopies.4 if we assume that something between 5-10,000Armenian titles were printed between 1851 and 1921 inthe Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire and in the rest ofthe Armenian Diaspora (we have to remember that thisincludes the period of modern Armenian cultural re-naissance when writing, translating, newspaper and

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periodical publishing activities boomed), and thatapproximately 2-3,000 were printed in non-Armenianlanguages, we are talking about roughly 60-65,000monographic titles.

With regard to serials, Armenians are noted asperiodical and newspaper publishers. They say thatwhen three Armenians come together, very soon yousee as many newspapers being published. HovannesPetrosian, in his three-volume index to Armenian peri-odicals (Hay parberakan mamuli bibliografia. Yerevan,1954-57), shows that from 1794 to 1900 some 256 news-papers and periodicals made their appearance; 1900-1956, 1164 Armenian and 45 non-Armenian language peri-odical titles, excluding Soviet Armenian; and on thepresent territory of Soviet Armenia, from 1902 to1954, 196 periodicals and 209 newspapers in Armenianand Russian "saw the light" as is said in Armenian.In 1971 there were 119 newspapers and 296 periodicaltitles current in the world.5 I am sure that thenumber today is much higher. In Los Angeles alone,4-5 newspapers and periodicals have made their ap-pearance in the past several years.

As for manuscripts, approximately 25,000 are ex-tant in the world; over 15,000 of them are preservedin the Manuscript Library of Yerevan, which is betterkno.wn as the Matenadaran.

What percentage of this vast amount of materialwould sufficiently cover the needs of a library whoseuniversity offers a respectable Armenian studies pro-gram, remembering, of course, that the main interestlies in the humanities? How could a library securecurrent and retrospective publications, not to mentionmanuscripts or their microfilm copies?

In my opinion, today if a library outside theArmenian homeland were to have a collection of some30,000 titles (excluding manuscripts), such a librarycould easily claim to have a magnificent collection.Building up such a collection requires in-depth know-ledge of the intellectual production in the area, ofthe history of Armenian book printing, access to bib-liographic sources, numerous contacts with institu-tions in Armenia and with publishers and bookdealersthroughout the world, and finally, widespread reputa-tion in order to attract gifts or sales of privatecollections large and small. In many U.S. libraries,it is the Near Eastern bibliographer who has the taskof developing the Armenian collection and who general-ly does not know Armenian — a situation that leavesmuch to be desired. Even if qualified staff were athand, because of the scarcity of retrospective publi-cations — especially of early printed books—I doubtthat a library starting its Armenian collection devel-opment in the 1970's could secure enough of these pub-lications to create a truly firm base to build upon.

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It follows that libraries have to share the informa-tion on their resources and rely on each other's col-lections. To this end, I have been working, duringthe past twelve years, towards creating a single in-formation source which will pool together on the pagesof a book catalog the resources of libraries withmajor Armenian holdings. This work will be entitledUnion catalog of Armenian materials in U.S. librariesand, by the time it is ready for publication, it willinclude more than 15,000 titles.6

What are some of the ways of securing retrospec-tive and current Armenian publications?

Materials in Non-Armenian Languages

In the realm of retrospective publications innon-Armenian languages, other than the occasional cat-alogs of the printing houses of the Venice and ViennaMekhitarist Fathers (they have published books in Ar-menian and the European languages), a bibliographerhas to wade through a sea of entries of general NearEastern catalogs of various European and Americanbookdealers to find Armenological works. Certainspecialized bookdealers, such as Librarie Orientale ofParis, rarely publish catalogs, and the bibliographermust appeal to them when searching for specific titleswhich often means futile loss of time and effort. Itmight be easier and even more economical to buy paperor film copies of such books from other libraries.There is the occasional small local Armenian bookstoreas well that will carry, alongside the Armenian books,some out-of-print Western language books purchasedfrom private sources.

As for current books in Western languages, an-nouncements somehow manage to find the bibliographer.Again, there are the general Near Eastern catalogs toconsult. Furthermore, the Armenian press has a wayof learning about them and publicizing them. Also,current and some retrospective English language booksare purchased in bulk by the National Association forArmenian Studies and Research of Cambridge, Mass., andoffered for sale through regular book lists. Similarlywith the bookstore of the Diocese of the ArmenianChurch in New York. Both offer some titles in Armen-ian as well.

Materials in Armenian

Securing Armenian language retrospective publi-cations is a very special problem. The history of theArmenians has been such that until the establishmentof the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia in 1921,very little publishing had taken place on Armeniansoil (notably at the Geworgian Seminary of Ejmiatsin).

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From 1512 to the present, Armenian books have beenpublished in Venice, Amsterdam, Constantinople, Vienna,Calcutta, Madras, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Rostow onthe Don, Astrakhan, Shusha (in Karabagh, now part ofAzerbaijan), Tiflis, Baku, Ejmiatsin, New Julfa (Iran),Yerevan (here most heavily in the 20th century), andvarious other Near Eastern, European and American ci-ties where appreciable Armenian communities or centersof Armenian learning were or are located. But commun-ities rise and decline — a fact that can be appliedto those in the Central and Eastern European countries(such as Poland, Romania, Italy, Hungary, etc., whereArmenian communities had been established as far backas the llth century), in India, Astrakhan, Tiflis andothers. Gone are the printing houses, the book deal-ers, the families that had private libraries. Whereare the books? Of course, many of then have foundtheir way to libraries in Soviet Armenia; others arein local state libraries; some occasionally appear onthe shelves of bookdealers, and still others are inthe possession of private collectors, while many arelost forever.

The best way to secure such books is to find pri-vate collectors who are willing to sell or donatetheir libraries to institutions where there is a guar-antee that the books will be preserved as well as usedActive search and publicity on the part of the seekinglibrary is a must. UCLA has been fortunate in thisrespect in that it has succeeded in securing throughbulk purchase several small collections as well as theimpressive Dr. Garo O. Minasian collection from Isfa-han, Iran (which included Armenian incunabula, rareIndia and New Julfa imprints as well as other out-of-print books published in Europe). It has also receiv-ed as gifts Dr. K.M. Khantamour's private collectionof some 1000 finely bound rare books, and many booksfrom second or third generation Armenian Americanswho cannot read Armenian. Recently, we also receivedpart of Mr. Harry Kurdian's library (Wichita, Kansas)comprising some 650 books and approximately 1500 peri-odical pieces.

A certain number of retrospective Armenian publi-cations may be acquired on exchange -- mainly throughthe Myasnikian State Library of Yerevan or the Funda-mental Library of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia.They are interested in all kinds of Western publica-tions, including Armenological studies in Western lan-guages. Pre-1940's publications, however, may be ex-tremely difficult to secure in print form. Retro-spective Armenian publications of the Mekhitarist Con-gregations of Venice and Vienna may, of course, bedirectly purchased from them. However, many of theirtitles are now out-of-print. For the rest, one has tobe on a constant lookout, keeping in touch with

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various Armenian bookdealers -- the best way beingpersonal visits.

Recently, a solution has been offered to thisgeneral problem by the Inter Documentation Company ofZug, Switzerland (Editor: J.J.S. Weitenberg of theUniversity of Leiden) which has begun to print on mi-crofiche Armenian out-of-print books and periodicals,having as a starting base the Armenian collection atthe University Library of Helsinki. This material isavailable on an annual subscription basis CSfr. 1000annually).

The bulk -- approximately 90% -- of current Ar-menian language publications are Soviet Armenian im-prints. No purchases of current books may be conduc-ted directly with the sources in Armenia. Blanketorders may be placed with certain officially recog-nized European and American outlets of Soviet publi-cations such as Four Continent in New York, LivresEtrangers in Paris, or Kubon u. Sagner in Munich.Or, orders may be placed with any of these outletsfor titles selected from the annual catalog of to-be-published books called Hayeren grk'er/Knigi na ar-mianskom xazyke. It must be said, however, thatthere is no absolute guarantee that all books orderedin this manner will reach the shelves of your library.Until you receive the catalog, make your selections,place your order, which in turn is sent on by yourdealer, much time passes by and there is the chancethat some of the most desirable books are unavailable.It isn't that books are necessarily published in lim-ited numbers of copies. In America, an importantpoet's new publication may not sell more than 3000copies, whereas in Armenia -- a country with a popu-lation of only three million -- a favorite poet'sbook may enjoy a printing of 30-50,000 copies. Ar-menians are avid readers and, very often, especiallyin the areas of literature, history and the arts,titles are sold out within weeks of publication.

To cover this gap, the bibliographer has to re-sort to other means, such as blanket order arrange-ments with the above-mentioned book dealers or ex-change arrangements with libraries in Armenia. Fur-theremore, the Committee for Cultural Relations withArmenians Abroad of Yerevan is generous to librariesthat indicate a desire to receive books on specifiedsubject areas as gifts. However, the number of booksreceived this way is understandably limited.

Current Armenian books in the rest of the worldare secured in a rather helter skelter way, again,by being on the alert for announcements in the Armen-ian press and by keeping in touch with book dealers,particularly in Lebanon and in the UtS,

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Periodicals

Current newspapers and periodicals of the dias-pora are fairly easy to secure on a subscriptionbasis. Titles from Soviet Armenia are secured, atleast at UCLA, through exchange arrangements. Often,securing replacements for lost issues proves to bedifficult. As for retrospective issues of periodi-cals, I personally have found it close to impossibleto find Soviet Armenian periodicals older than tenyears. Space problems have forced many institutesto discard back issues of the periodicals they pub-lish.

For retrospective issues of Western Armenianperiodicals, the best collection is said to be thatof the library of the Vienna Mekhitarists. Thereexists a catalog of this library's newspaper collec-tion. ? The only way, therefore, of possessingcopies of any of these periodicals is by orderingXerox or microfilm copies. A practical way for allU.S. libraries interested in developing an Armenianperiodicals collection on microfilm would be througha joint order by sharing the expenses of preparingthe negative copies. Or, perhaps, this idea couldbe suggested to the Inter Documentation Company ofSwitzerland from whom, eventually, libraries couldorder microfiche sets.

Manuscripts

An occasional Armenian manuscript finds its wayto a library. It is most welcome when it is a gift,but when it is offered for sale, very often it be-comes impossible to acquire in these days of limitedbook budgets. Of late years, the chances of securingArmenian manuscripts on microfilm have been improving.It is possible, for example, to request occasionalmanuscript microfilms from the Matenadaran in Yerevan.Similarly with the Hill Monastic Microfilm Library ofSt. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota,with special permission from the library owning theoriginal manuscript. The HMML is developing a micro-film collection of manuscript collections in Europe.Its Austrian project includes 1,181 Armenian manu-scripts located at the library of the Mekhitarist Con-gregation of Vienna. Unfortunately, the Vienna Me-khitarists are not very forthcoming with permissionto release copies of manuscript microfilms. Thesame may be true of the Venice Mekhitarists,but thesituation could change in time. It is hoped thatAmerican libraries will have better luck in securingsome microfilms of manuscripts located in Munich,

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Paris, Helsinki, London, etc., when HMML completesits European project.

The identification of manuscripts in the Westernworld for microfilm ordering and their eventual cata-loging will be facilitated by the existence of numer-ous catalogs of Armenian manuscript collections atvarious institutions. For example, the Matenadaranof Yerevan has published a two-volume catalog of itsmanuscripts^ and is in the process of preparing forpublication a series of catalogs which will describethe manuscripts in greater detail. As far as manu-scripts in public institutions in the U.S. are con-cerned, there is A.K. Sanjian's Catalogue of Armenianmedieval manuscripts in the U.S. (Berkeley, Univer-sity of California Press, 1976) which covers allholdings (a total of 174 items) except those at UCLA.The later, which number more than 100, will be dealtwith in a separate catalog by Professor Sanjian inthe near future.

As can be seen from the foregoing, many are theproblems faced by the bibliographer in trying tobuild up a respectable and viable Armenian collectionin a U.S. library.

Technical Processing

We all know that it is not enough just to havea rich collection. Since the idea is to have thesematerials used as widely as possible, their in-depthsubject analysis, proper classification, and the easyaccessibility of names and titles is of fundamentalimportance. In discussing processing problems, Ishall be speaking strictly of libraries making use ofLibrary of Congress classification and subject head-ings .

Processing is the area where most libraries withappreciable Armenian collections have difficulties.There are many libraries -- research and public --that have the books but no language specialists.They have several options. One is to place the bookson low priority for deferred cataloging. For allpractical purposes, they might as well not have thebooks. Another option is to make use of Library ofCongress cataloging. Here they face the problem ofmatching a book in hand with the Library of Congresscard copy. If no one has familiarity with the idio-syncracies of the transliteration table or an idea re-garding the forms of Armenian names (particularlyforenames, compound forenames, and genitive forms ofsurnames that do appear on title pages occasionally),the matching process could become a near impossibil-ity. Only in the instance of Soviet Armenian publi-cations where there is an added title page in Russian-- which information is supplied on Library of Con-

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gress records — could these libraries have somemeasure of success.9 And even here they will runinto problems because of differences in romanizationfrom the Armenian and from the Russian. Furthermore,it does not help matters at all, when we note that alarge percentage of Soviet Armenian publications givethe Russian added title information on the verso ofthe title page or in colophon position. This infor-mation is not shown on Library of Congress recordsand libraries are unable to make use of Library ofCongress copy. At UCLA we supply this added infor-mation for the benefit of libraries that seek ourassistance in cataloging their Armenian books. Athird option could be to use Library of Congress copywhere found and in all other cases to simply romanizethe title page information and show only author andtitle records in the catalog. Of course, the lattermethod has its traps: it does not provide subjectanalysis which is a major disservice to the libraryuser and it can play havoc with main entries. Evenif the person working with these books possessed somedegree of Armenian but was not a subject specialistand worse, not a professional catalog librarian fa-miliar with the Library of Congress' history of Ar-menian bibliographic control procedures, he/she couldproduce a less than useful bibliographic record.

Here it would be helpful to record the develop-ment of bibliographic control procedures (classifica-tion, subject headings, romanization) for Armenianmaterials in the U.S. Somewhere between 45 to 65years ago (between 1915 and 1935) the Library of Con-gress developed its classification schemes and subjectheadings for Armenian subject areas based on a groupof predominantly non-Armenian language books at hand.Until 1971, these classification numbers and subjectheadings were unquestioningly used by Library of Con-gress personnel and other libraries using the LCsystem. In the meantime, the Turkish massacres ofArmenians had occurred, the Armenian Republic hadcome and gone, and Soviet Armenia was established —all offering the need for new subject headings and/orrevised classification numbers. Generally, the clas-sification schemes were well thought-out, except inthe area of the Eastern Armenian language — thelanguage used in Soviet Armenia today — about numer-ous aspects of which many publications have appearedand continue to appear. If you had looked at the Li-brary of Congress classification schedule for Armen-ian language (PK8001-8454) as late as 1970, you wouldhave seen that 100 numbers were assigned to "Generaland Classical Armenian," 100 numbers to "Modern Ar-menian" (meaning Modern West Armenian), 50 numbers to"Middle Armenian" — a dead language about which veryfew publications exist, and 4 numbers for "Modern

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East Armenian." What made it even more ridiculouswas the fact that in the Library of Congress trans-literation table, the phonetic values of Modern EastArmenian were used (and are now being used), yet inthe classification scheme this currently dominantlanguage was alloted only four numbers!

However, the Library of Congress was most inade-quate in the area of Armenian subject headings. Aslate as 1966, the 7th edition of the Library of Con-gress Subject Headings showed two headings for Armen-ianlanguage,namely"Armenian Language" which mixedtogether Classical, Middle and Modern West Armenian(even though the classification schedule made cleardistinctions among them) and "East Armenian language"which relegated all records representing this subjectto the "E" section of the public catalog like poorsecond cousins.

In the literature area, as late as 1970, no dis-tinction was made between pre-modern and 19th and20th century Armenian literature, even though itemsin this category were cataloged by the Library ofCongress. Similarly with drama, fiction, prose andpoetry.

The worst area, however, was that of history.In the 7th edition of the Library of Congress SubjectHeadings there were only two history-related sub-ject headings, namely "Armenia - History" and "Armenianquestion." Somewhere between 1966 and 1970 the Li-brary of Congress added "Armenian massacres, 1915-1923" — an important and overdue addition. As onecan see, there did not exist a period breakdown forthe history of a country as ancient as Armenia.

In 1968 UCLA had approximately 8,000 Armenianbooks. All the above-cited inadequacies were appar-ant in the face of such a large collection. For thein-depth and systematic cataloging of these materialsit was necessary to grow away from the Library ofCongress1 almost obsolete and, at the very best, lim-ited subject heading and improve its classificationschemes for Armenian subjects. In early 1968, I ex-panded classification schemes — the most importantbeing the release of 46 unused numbers to the existing4 assigned to Modern East Armenian, and devised newlanguage and literature subject headings as well as ahistory period breakdown for use at UCLA. The lan-guage divisions were:

Armenian language (general & all-inclusive)Armenian language. ClassicalArmenian language, MiddleArmenian language, ModernArmenian language, Modern - East ArmenianArmenian language, Modern - West Armenian

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Thus all the divisions of the language were arrangedin an organic relationship to each other.

Our new history period subdivisions numbered 14as against the original "Armenia - History", as:

Armenia - History - To 428- Artaxiad (Artashesian) dynasty,

189 B.C. - 1 A.D.- Arsacid (Arshakuni) dynasty,

66-428- 428-1522- Persian and Greek rule, 429-

640- Arab period, 640-885- Bagratuni dynasty, 885-1045- Turkic-Mongol domination,

1045-1522- 1522-1800- 1801-1900- 1901- (10)

- Armenian Republic, 1918-1920- 1921-

In addition, the Cilician Kingdom received the sub-ject heading "Cilician Kingdom, 1080-1375." 1]-

Circa 1969, the Library of Congress began sys-tematic buying of Armenian language books and pro-ducing cataloging records without introducing anychanges in the critical areas mentioned above. Thiswas a perfect time to create uniformity in the modern-ized bibliographic control of Armenian materials onthe national level. A written proposal in 1970 sub-mitting the above changes drew positive responsefrom the Subject Cataloging Division of the Library ofCongress. The result was that new subject headingsand history period breakdowns appeared in the 8thedition of Library of Congress Subject Headings (1975),and classification changes appeared in the July-September 1970 Library of Congress Classification Ad-ditions and Changes list 159 (DS 161-199) and PK8451-8499 ranges); the history period breakdown ap-peared in the Library of Congress' Period SubdivisionUnder Names of Places (1975). Thus, UCLA practicebecame national standard.

In view of these changes, Library of Congressand National Union Catalog records up to 1971 can-not be used blindly by libraries adding such recordsfor the first time to their catalogs. Thus, this isanother problem area in the processing of Armenianmaterials. This is a major reason why the work on theArmenian Union Catalog is progressing so slowly.Classification numbers are not touched unless cata-loged by UCLA after 1968, but many subject headings,where the discrepancies are identifiable, are being

26

changed.Another problem area — this one current as late

as 1978 and even persisting to this date — is thequestion of romanization. When I first began usingthe Library of Congress Armenian romanization table,I realized that it was not acceptable as it stood.The table, which prefers the Eastern Armenian phoneticvalues and makes provision for cross-references fromthe Western Armenian phonetic values, was acceptablein principle but was defective in certain areas dueto the orthographic differences between East and WestArmenian. Two items were of major consequence, es-pecially when applied to the romanization of names.

The first was the matter of the composite vowelor digraph »i . In the standard table of translitera-tion the two characters of the vowel were treated asindividual characters and the vowel romanized intoow, i.e., a diphthong — a distortion of the soundwhich makes words containing the vowel completely un-recognizable in romanized form. It is worth notinghere that in SSR Armenia, n i is considered a char-acter and has been absorbed in the alphabet tableitself. In addition, there is the fact that in thecase of Soviet Armenian publications (which make upabout 90% of Armenian publications in the world),libraries tend to make use of the Russian added titlepage information where the Armenian ni becomes theRussian y which romanizes to a u. Furthermore, manySoviet Armenians publish in Russian and when theirnames are romanized the original Armenian vowel al-ways converts to u, again, via the Russian y. Forpractical reasons, as well as for the fact that u ismuch more representative of the vowel sound than ow,it was necessary that ni be romanized into u.

The second item needing reconsideration was thequestion of the Armenian patronymic suffix - jiu^generally used by Soviet Armenians. The Western Ar-menian patronymic suffix is - bw'ii . Regular romani-zation required the latter to convert to -ean but anexception rule allowed it to romanize to -ian — aform preferred by Armenians living in the Westernworld and spelling their names in Western languages.

On the other hand. Soviet Armenian names re-ceived regular romanization and the jui^i converted to-yan. Such a distinction poses problems to the cata-loger and is a trap for the unwary. First, it be-comes the responsibility of the cataloger to deter-mine whether an author published in Soviet Armeniais actually a Soviet Armenian author or a Westernauthor whose work is being published there. The ca-taloger will either have to waste a lot of time in-vestigating the author's place of origin, or willsimply work from the title-page, thus rendering theexception rule for Western Armenian authors meaning-less.

27

Secondly, on the Russian added title-page inSoviet Armenian publications, the suffix ju/1; trans-literates to the Russian AH which becomes the roman-ized -Jan. And again, names of Soviet Armenian auth-ors writing in Russian are always shown in catalogrecords with the -ian ending. Consequently, libra-ries end up representing Soviet Armenian authors bothWith -yan and -ian endings. Furthermore, if an auth-or has published both in Armenian and in Russian,much time would be wasted in changing already estab-lished names from the Russian -ian ending to the ro-manization from the vernacular, i.e., -yan. Again,for all these practical reasons, it was necessary toestablish one general rule: romanize all Armeniannames ending in bui'ii or jui^i to -ian.

These recommendations were accepted by the Lib-rary of Congress in 1976 and with a few additionalchanges the new table was submitted to and approvedby the Descriptive Cataloging Committee of the Ameri-can Library Association. The new table appears asthe revised standard table of Armenian romanizationin the Library of Congress' Cataloging Service Bul-letin no. 121 (Spring, 1977), and was put into prac-tice by the Library of Congress in 1978. But this isnot the end of the story. Library of Congress willapply this table to all new names and titles beingestablished. So far as this writer has been able todetermine to date, old entries will not be revised,and already established names based on the old tablewill continue in the old form as new titles or neweditions of these authors' works are cataloged. Thismeans that in cataloging a book, a librarian mustlook up Library of Congress entries under both pos-sible forms and must have both tables of romanizationat hand. Otherwise, with blind acceptance of Libraryof Congress records, libraries will be in danger ofduplicating the application of two romanization stan-dards in their records, and thus confuse the patrons.

Very recently, the processing of Armenian lang-uage books has taken a new direction. Most major U.S.libraries are now participants in the pooling of ca-talog records in on-line (machine readable) systemssuch as the Ohio College Library Center (better knownas OCLC) to which both the Library of Congress andUCLA are contributors. At this time, no software es-ists that would make Armenian characters machine-readable. Consequently, the Library of Congress hasresorted to supplying its Armenian catalog recordsentirely in romanized form. This practice, for one,means murdering the language. Patrons familiar withthe language will be confused and frustrated as theywill have difficulties in reconstructing the vernac-ular version from the romanized form: is the originalin Classical Armenian, in modern West Armenian, or in

28

modern East Armenian? The problem will be compoundedfor scholars familiar with other romanizationschemes: it is one thing to try to grapple with aromanized main entry ( as in the case of the tradi-tional system where the main entry only is romanizedfor filing purposes and the body of the informationis in the vernacular) but to wrestle with an entirelyromanized record will be hard to bear. For librarieswanting to make use of these records, the basic prob-lems mentioned in this paper will continue to holdtrue, and there will be the additional loss of thecapability of working with the added Russian title-page information note that was available on the tra-ditional Library of Congress depository cards (seefootnote #9). The only advantage12 will lie in thefact that the names of the libraries making use ofthese records will be recorded in the system, andthis will be of help to interlibrary loan departmentsand thus lighten the load on those libraries bestknown for Armenian holdings. It is hoped that thenecessary software is created in the near future sothat the body of the machine-readable record will bepresented in Armenian characters.

As can be seen from the foregoing, much has beenachieved in modernizing the bibliographic control ofArmenian publications. The table of romanization hasbeen standardized; the Library of Congress has cata-loged a large number of books which in turn has gen-erated numerous new Armenian subject headings; andlibraries have been able to profit from all this ac-tivity. Yet, there are persistent problems. The lib-rarian cataloging these materials must know Armenian,but unfortunately such specialist librarians are notreadily available. Some libraries, aware of the ex-isting problems, apply to me for assistance in cata-loging their Armenian holdings. They send Xeroxedcopies of the title-pages of their books and if Lib-rary of Congress or UCLA catalog copy exists for atitle, I send them a copy of the record. In this man-ner their books get cataloged and I receive informa-tion as to library holdings of Armenian materials forthe forthcoming Union Catalog of Armenian Materialsin U.S. Libraries. This project, begun in 1968, ismore than half way completed. It has been progressingslowly because of the detailed search that has to beconducted through the National Union Catalog and OCLCrecords to find the items; because not all recordsappear in the National Union Catalog (original cata-loging of Armenian language materials is not recordedhere), or OCLC (not all libraries are participants inthis system) and libraries must be visited to secure

29

fuller information; because of the numerous changesthat have to be made on old records (main entries,subject headings) and the cross-references that willhave to be generated through these changes; and be-cause other libraries will have to be helped in ca-taloging their books before their holdings can go onrecord in the union catalog. Once complete, thisdictionary catalog which will offer access to publi-cations in Armenian and in non-Armenian languagesthrough author, title and subject, will have manyadvantages:

1. It will provide a single centralized sourceof information of books and periodical andnewspaper titles on Armenological subjectsin major U.S. libraries.

2. It will provide numerous subject bibliog-raphies .

3. It will assist libraries to verify the exis-tence of Armenological sources in U.S. lib-raries and, therefore, facilitate interlib-rary loan.

4. It will provide bibliographic information forretrospective collection development and con-sequently collections will grow and Armenianbook business will expand.

5. It will assist libraries in cataloging ma-terials they have in hand since many libra-ries do not have Armenian specialists eventhough they have Armenian books.

The picture of Armenian collection developmentand processing in the U.S. is much brighter todaythan it was some ten years ago, in spite of theproblems presented in this paper. Knowing what theproblems are and where help is forthcoming is agiant step towards resolving them. The Armeniancommunity in the U.S. is growing, Armenian programsin universities are flourishing, and it is essen-tial that libraries whether servinq their local com-munities or supporting university programs keepstep with this growth both in the size of their col-lections and in the quality of their bibliographicrecords.

Gia Aivazian

[Footnotes follow on next pageII

30

Footnotes

Haykakan sovetakan hanragitaran, v. 3 (Yerevan,1977), p. 89.

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.

^ The Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (Yerevan,1977), p. 17.

5 Armenian press directory, edited by Edward Gulbe-kian. 2nd ed. (London, HARQ Publications, 1971).

6 More on this project will be said in the secondsegment of this paper.

7 Karapetian, Rap'ayel. Liakatar ts'uts'ak hayerenIragirneru oronk' ke gtnuin Mkhit'arian Matendar-ani mgj i Vienna, 1794-1921.(Vienna, 1924).

° Ts'uts'ak dzeragrats' Mashtots'i anvan Matenadarani,compiled by 0. Eganian, A. Zeyt'unian, and P'.Ant'abian. (Yerevan, 1965-70).

9 This capability applies only in the instance ofLibrary of Congress printed cards. Armenianlanguage cards could be separated from the restof the depository cards received from the Lib-rary of Congress and the Russian title page in-formation of the book could be compared with thenotes on the printed cards concerning this infor-mation, until the matching card is found. Thiscapability also is now lost to libraries thatjoin the OCLC on-line system. In 1979, the Lib-rary of Congress announced that records of cer-tain non-roman alphabet languages, including Ar-menian, would be represented in completely roman-ized form. This means that libraries must havestaff that can deal with Armenian romanization,and more. The Library of Congress will no longershow the Russian added title page information,but merely state in note position: "Added t.p.in Russian." In this matter, libraries made amistake when they kept silent or indicated ap-proval of the Library of Congress' decision. Itwas only UCLA that raised its voice on their be-half, but it was only one voice. The Library ofCongress could have been persuaded to continuesending depository cards until such time as the

31

software necessary to deal with Armenian charac-ters became available..

10 Later, when the Library of Congress consideredthese period breakdowns for adoption, it revis-ed this heading to read "Armenia - History -1917-1921" with an explanatory note saying thatthe heading includes the Armenian Republic,1918-1920.

11 The Library of Congress changed this to read"Cilicia - History - Armenian Kingdom, 1080-1375."

12 in the traditional system, when libraries reportedtheir holdings to the National Union Catalog,the records supplied, if other than Library ofCongress printed card copy, were not reproducedin the National Union Catalog because this sys-tem could not deal with non-roman alphabet re-cords, except if they were Library of Congressprinted cards.

32

ARMENIAN TRANSLITERATION

ttft*7-bab£p-J-/•ihi

a,

pttk1*ePj-t-L

1"

ab,p,K[k|d,tje1

ze

8t'zhi1kh

IT v mB j y'1, l n& i sh

fl » oa t ch1

* tD- n. A

u - s*L -L ^S *" ^t*^j

f r r& *• tSjdZ] S 3 ts1

* 4 k[gi ^ ' w

4 < h * V1 P'2 <t dzrtSi "f- f k*"•l"~*J f: ••

7. ^ gh 0 o 6a ^ ch[]j A ^ f

SOURCE: The Library of Congress, Processing Department,Cataloging Service Bulletin, no. 1+7 (September, 1958)

"The transliteration table printed herewith has beenapproved by the American Library Association and the Libraryof Congress. It is based on the phonetic values of Classicaland East Armenian. The variant phonetic values of West Ar-menian are included in brackets but are intended solely foruse in preparing references from West Armenian forms ofnames when this may be desirable."

33

ARMENIAN

This table is based on the phonetic values of Classical and East Armenian.1

«n9-7-

tabc

j-

ih

43

a'W

8

ut

pit

i. -

i

P

tL

t"

<l

1

£

ABGDEVZEET'ZhILKhTsKHDzGhCh

yH

a

b [P p]1

g |K k] 'd [T t] 'e

y 3

/.c

e

t'

zh'

i

1

kh 'ts' (Dz dz] '• 'k [G g]1

hdz ' [Ts ts] ' 'gh'ch [J j] '

yh s

t i- X5 t Shfl O2 , Ch'•? .., P

5 I -ifl- .. R

•t 4 VA' - TF r R8 , Ts-

A ^ W

<t> ./• P'f f K'

fr«. i«. or i E\v

fcj LJ or 4 Ev

o o 04 ?> F

nsh*o

ch-

Pir

d

V

t

r

ts-w

u

p'k-ew

ev

o

f

[ Ch ch ]

I D d]

in Classicalorthography

in Reformedorthography

NOTES'The variant phonetic values of West Armenian are included in brackets but lire

intended solely for use in preparing references from West Armenian forms of names whenthis may be desirable.

2 Armenian words ending in -i-i- (in Classical orthography) or -/•"i Cm

Reformed orthography) are romanized -ian.3 This value is used only when the letter is in initial position of a name and followed

by a vowel, in Classical orthography.1 The acute accent is placed between the two letters representing two different sounds

when the combination might otherwise be rend as a diagraph (e. g. 9-Yi""V D'znuhi).5 This value is used only when the letter is in initial position of a word or of a

stem in a compound, in Classical orthography.

Cataloging Service, Bulletin 121 / Spring 1977 21

P e r s i a n P u b l i s h i n g & Pers ian Collect ionsI n U . S . L i b r a r i e s

Historical Perspective

Most of the private publishers in Iran are book-sellers. In old Tehran booksellers were located atBazar-i Bayn al-Haramayn and Timchah-'i Kitabfuru-shiha. About fifty years ago the publishers movedto Nasir Khusraw Street; from there to Khiyaban-iShahabad, and recently they have clustered on InqilabAvenue (formerly Shahreza Avenue).

Publishers and booksellers first established atrade union in 1946 which subsequently joined theHigh Council of Trade Unions in 1958. Among^the old-est firms were Khayyam, Ganj-i Danish, BaranI, Mar-kazl and Kulalah-i Khavar.

Important_modern private publishers_and book-sellers are Amir Kablr, Andlshah, Nll^ Tus, Ibn-iSina, Gutanburg, Safi 'All Shah, Zavvar, Tahurl,Payam, Numunah, and Chihr. In the provinces, impor-tant publishers are Saqafl and Ta'yld in Isfahan;Ma'rifat in Shiraz; Surush in Tabriz; and Zavvar inMashhad. Among government publishers Vizarat-iFarhang va Hunar, Amuzish va Parvarish, Iqtisad,'Ulum va Amuzish-i 'All, Ta'avun va Rustaha, and Saz-man-i Barnamah have been more active than others.Semi-official publishers include Bungah-i Tarjumahva Nashr-i Kitab, Bunyad-i Farhang-i Iran, Anjuman-iAsar-i Milll, and Sazman-i Jughrafiya'I-i Kishvar.

Due to the rising cost of printing since 1972,smaller print runs and a limited market for scholarlybooks, essential works and classical texts have been

35

issued more by government and semi-offical bodiesthan the private sector. The increase in the amountof scholarly publication in the public sector in re-cent years is linked also with the pre-revolutionreforms which allocated large sums of money to revampeducation, encourage scholarship, expand libraries,and to develop educational standards.

Iranian governments have always tried to regu-late and control private publishing. After the es-tablishment of the National Book Depository Law in1968, the National Library, affiliated with the Min-istry of Culture and Arts, performed the role of acensoring agent for the government. Publishers wererequired to submit one"printed" copy of each manu-script before publication, and two copies of theirprinted books to the National Library after approvalfor publishing was secured from the Library. Whilethis control was effective for the most part, smallbusinesses were at times able to break the law and pub-lish works critical of the existing social conditions.In 1977 the government was charged with trying toimpose strict control over publishing by denying taxexemption and financial aid to small publishers, sothat, burdened by steep rises in the cost of laborand price of paper, they would be forced out of busi-ness. This control would, presumably, be then effec-ted by providing Amir Kablr, one of the largest pri-vate publishers, with sufficient money to attractintellectuals and writers, thereby assuring that allimportant manuscripts would flow through its hands,thus turning Amir Kablr into Iran's largest privatepublishing screening enterprise.1

These allegations have yet to be proved, butpatterns in the private publishing scene have changed.For instance, a number of small publishers eitherclosed down or merged with publishers having sounderfinancial footing. Thus, Amir Kablr purchased Ibn-iSina and Kitabha-yi Jibi, and merged with KharazmiePublishing House. Also, the registration of bookswas charged to Idarah-i Nigarish within the Ministryof Culture and Arts, which had a special censorshipsection.

Conversely, the later part of 1978 and the firstquarter of 1979 were the most active periods forIranian private publishing in many years. During abook-buying trip to Iran in mid-October, 1979, thiswriter was amazed at the number of customers enteringor leaving bookstores. The license for publishing,along with a relaxation on censorship, had theirroots in Amir Abbas Hoveyda's premiership when aspecial committee was formed to look into decliningbook statistics. A "black list" of nearly 1,200books was presented to Hoveyda. Due to increasing

36

pre-revolutionary pressure, his office reduced thelist almost daily. In late October, 1978, just afterthe fall of Sharif Emami's government, the "blacklist" disappeared. At that time, the most controver-sial books were more readily found than ever beforein the market. Literary and socio-historical_worksof Al Ahmad, Buzurg 'Alavi, Bihrangi and Shari'atiwere abundantly available. With the success of re-volution and the establishment of an Islamic govern-ment there was a shift in subject matter emphasis.Hundreds of religious titles appeared either in orig-inal or in reprints. Because more than twenty dif-ferent political and religious parties organized orreorganized, newspapers and periodicals of variousideologies abounded. Less fortunate, however, havebeen the scholarly government or semi-official publi-cations which had been totally or partially funded bythe Shah administration. Many of the sponsors ofthese publications were included in the post-revolu-tionary purges. Until a reorganization in the gov-ernment ministries takes hold, the fate of a largegroup of scholarly publications remains uncertain.Barrasiha-yi TarlkhT, Namah-i Anjuman-i Agar-i Milli,Hunar va Mardum, Javidan Khirad, Mardumshinasi vaFarhang-i 'Amman, and monographic series published byBunyad-i Farhang-i Iran and Anjuman-i A§ar-i Milliare included in this group. Recently the Islamicgovernment reestablished censorship by closing downsome forty periodicals and newspapers and has threat-ened to close more if they do not follow "the revolu-tionary path" set by the new leaders.

Publishing Output

The publishing industry, never very prosperousin Iran compared to other developing countries, faceda bigger recession in 1973 when the price of paperand the cost of printing rose rapidly. The IranianStatistical Center, conducting interviews with pub-lishers, booksellers, authors, translators and read-ers, summarized the situation as follows:2

1. The rising cost of paper and printing result-ed in highly priced books.

2. Censorship and difficulty in obtaining pub-lishing permits discouraged publishers frominvesting money in certain books.

3. Publishers did not readily accept manuscriptsdealing with social problems because of cen-sorship and government repression.

4. There was a lack of interest in reading bythe general public.

37

5. Schools and educational institutions failedto create the necessary interest in reading.

6. Iran lacked a system of book export whichwould enable booksellers to sell to the out-side market.

7. Private publishers had no protection from thegovernment or credit institutions such asbanks.

8. Book distribution was poor throughout thecountry.

9. The Iranian press and media had no activerole in introducing books.

10. Authorship was not a secure profession.

Because of these problems, a typical press-runin Iran varied between 500 to 2,000 copies, occas-ionally reaching 5,000 or more, except for paper-backs and textbooks. The average number of copiesprinted for the years 1967 and 1971 was 2,094. Bookswith more than 5,000 copies formed only 10% of allthe titles published.

Statistics provided by various agencies for dif-ferent periods on the publishing output in Iran aredivided and conflicting. The Iranian National Bib-liography lists books received for registration bythe National Library under the Book Depository Lawof 1968. However, publications of government agen-cies, scientific research organizations, and some ed-ucational institutions are either excluded from list-ing or are only partially represented. Incompletethough they may be, the National Library statisticshave been compiled and used since 1963. Prior tothat the ten-year bibliography compiled by IrajAfshar and Husayn Bani Adam (1968) provides statisticsfor the period 1954-1963. According to this biblio-graphy some 5,602 titles were published in theseyears of which 333 were children's books. Table 1shows the distribution of books published for 1954-1963 by subject.

(Table #1)

T = totalA = adultJ = juv.

T 5602A 5269J 333

gene

ral

9292

ph

ilo

s.

350350

reli

gio

n

567567

•HOco

OOco

612612

lang

uage

275275

•HCJCO

CUuaP.

331269

s O

•Hti

rHP.P.CO

453441

12

4-t

CO

9289

3

i-<•Hr-H

21601968

192

4-1 OOCO O

•H 01X 00

670606

64

Source: I. Afshar. Kitabshlnasl-i dahsalah-'i Iran. Teheran:Book Society, 1968.

38

A comparison of the average annual book produc-tion in the decade 1954-1963 with the trend for 1963and later shows some increase in the number of titlespublished in the later years. In fact, the numberfor 1971 is about four times that of 1963. However,looking at some factors, the level of book productionin 1971 was still low. For instance, the Ministry ofEducation reported that in the same decade (1954-1963) the rate of literacy increased from 22% to 36%.The number of graduates from higher institutions oflearning increased from 4,302 to 17,949, and that ofhigh schools from 21,000 to 55,000; whereas the numberof books produced in ten years increased by only 1,439titles.

A study of books in the years 1963-1971 alsoshows some change in the ratio of titles publishedby subject as compared to the preceding years. Lite-rary titles (still the highest percentage) show somedecline in 1971. Philosophy titles also decreaseafter a relative increase in the preceding years.Books of general reference, applied sciences , socialsciences and especially religion grew notably. (Seethe attached tables, 2a and 2b.)

(Table #2a)

Distribution of number of titles published,1963-1971, by subject and year

196319641965196619671968196919701971

rH10U0H

522984

1,1041,2421,341

1,2311,5861,961

rHra0)a01o

1137464218

426781

COorH-H.ePH

2453516559

646260

c-300

•HrHCJ

BS

4596

181126177

125295335

•HU

UO

65106

97123132

113162300

00cra>-i

2441565392

5289104

•HOM01

3PH

3353716960

6776124

•HO

.p.<

30686299

112

104100155

jj1̂

<c

1215181714

173735

i-j<u•HrJ

217421418537535

536587577

-a

4J 00en o-H CUsa e>

6194

104111142

111111190

Source: Iranian National Bibliography, 1963-1971

39

In a separate study by the Center for CulturalStudies and Coordination, Ministry of Culture andArts, the number of titles published in 1971 has beenplaced at over 3,474.

The 1975 partial statistics put out by the Na-tional Library indicated a big decline in book pro-duction. According to the Library some 1,916 titleswere published in each of the years 1973 and 1974,but the number for the period April-October, 1975 wasonly 700 titles. This was the year when, followingthe Arab Oil Embargo and the subsequent tripling ofoil prices, inflation was rampant in Iran, and somesmall publishers were forced to either merge withothers or go out of business. To offset the highcost of typesetting, less original publishing tookplace. Instead, off-set editions of the previouslypublished titles (mostly in religion) were reproduced.Subjects other than religion stood in this order:poetry and literature, history and geography, socialsciences, basic sciences, applied sciences, languageand culture, and general reference. Most of the ti-tles published were translations from English, and

(Table #2b)

Percentage of books published from 1963to 1971, by subject

n!01

196319641965196619671968196919701971

100tiH

It

It

II

I I

It

Gen

eral

2 .13.74 .23.41.3

3.44.24.1

Phi

loso

phy

4 .65.44.65.24.4

5.23.93.1

Rel

igio

n

8.69 .7

16.410.113.2

10.218.617.1

Soc.

Sc

ienc

e

12.510.88.89.99.8

9.210.215.3

Lan

guag

e

4.64 .25.14.36.9

4 .25.65.3

•HO

0)1-13

6.35.46.45.64.5

5.44.86.3

•HCJcn

i— 1O-

5.76.95.68.08.4

8.46.37.9

-u

2.31.51.61.41.0

1.42.31.8

Lit

erat

ure

41.642.837.943.239.9

43.637.129.4

His

tory

&G

eogr

aphy

11.79.69.48.9

10.1

9.07.09.7

Source: Iranian National Bibliography, 1963-1971.

40

some from French, German and Arabic. The private pub-lishers' translations were mostly history and socialsciences; those issued in the public sector were inbasic and applied sciences.

Statistics on pre-1954 book production in Iranare scarce. Therefore, it is hard to estimate howmany titles have been published since the introductionof Arabic and Persian printing in the 19th century.A report on Iran's cultural activities issued by theCenter for Cultural Studies and Coordination, Ministryof Culture and Arts, puts the number of Iranian pub-lications for the 30 years preceding 1975 at 34,578.By putting together available statistics from varioussources, one sees that a total of 50,000 books mayhave been issued in Iran since the introduction ofprinting.

As for serials, a study of the Iranian press forthe period from 1964 to 1974 reveals that a total of212 titles of daily newspapers, weeklies, monthly andquarterly journals and annuals in Persian, Assyrian(Syriac), Armenian, German, English, French and Arabicformed the Iranian press for that decade. From thisnumber 138 were published in Tehran and the remainderin the provinces.3

After the Revolution, hundreds of new periodicalsand newspapers appeared; some of them continue to bepublished. Featured among these literary, historical,religious and political newspapers and periodicalswere those of minority ethnic groups, including AzeriTurks, Arabs, and Kurds.

Table #3Iranian serial publications for 1964-1974

Type

NewspaperWeeklyMonthlyQuarterlyAnnualBulletins

Tehran

215355153

Other Cities

76421-—

Total

2811757253

Source: Barzin, Mas'ud. The Iranian Press. Tehran:Kitabkhanah-'i Bahjat, 1976.

41

Table #4

Iranian serial publications for 1971, by language

Newspaper

Weeklynewsletters& Bulletins

Weeklyjournals

Monthlyjournals

Total

iHwUoE-i

34

71

30

50

185

Per

sian

27

70

29

48174

Eng

lish

5

1

_

6F

renc

h

1

-

_

1

Ara

bic

-

-

1

1

Ger

man

-

1

-

_

1

Arm

enia

n

1

.-

_

1

Ass

yria

n

-

.-

1

1

Source: Ministry of Information

IRANIAN NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS THAT WEREPUBLISHED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE

1979 REVOLUTION

Persian Newspapers

1. 'Adalat2. Akhbar-i imruz3. 'All Baba4. Andishah5. Andishah-i azad6. Arash7. Arman8. Arman-i mustag'afin9. Asar10. Ashur11. 'Asr12. 'Asr-i nuvln

13. Awliya'14. Ayandah-i Az^arbayijan15. Azadi (Tihran)16. Azadi (Ahwaz)17. Az^arabadagan18. Aziarakhsh19. Azarbayijan20. Bahar21. Bahar-i Iran22. Bamdad23. Barabari24. BarSn

42

25. Barnamah-i Hukumat-i 76.Jumhuri-i Islaml 77.

26. Barrasi 78.27. Bazar 79.28. Bidari 80.29. Bidarl-i zan 81.30. Burs 82.31. Chap 83.32. Damun 84.33. Danishamuz-i mubariz 85.34. Danistanlha 86.35. Dar khidmat-i inqilab 87.36. Dawrahgard37. Diplumat 88.38. Dirafsh-i azadi 89.39. Dunya 90.40. Dunya-i jadid 91.41. Fajr-i umld42. Farman 92.43. Faryad-i Gilan 93.44. Gawd 94.45. Guzarishha-yi huquqi 95.46. Haji Baba 96.47. Hamsayah'ha 97.48. Hamshahrl 98.49. yaqlqat 99.50. Hifdah-i Shahrivar51. Iftlkharat-i mllll 100.52. Imam 101.53. Inqilab-i Islaml 102.54. Isar 103.55. 'Ishqi 104.56. I'tiraf 105.57. Ittib.ad 106.58. Ittibad-i chap 107.59. Ittibad-1 dimukrasi 108.60. Ittihad-i mardum 109.61. Jihad-i mu'allim 110.62. Jangal 111.63. Jaras bara-yi dihqan 112.64. Javanan-i inqilab 113.65. Jawshan 114.66. Jibhah-i azadi 115.67. Jibhah-i milli-i Iran 116.68. Jibhah-i sima-yi inqilab 117.69. Jigh va dad 118.70. Jum'ah 119.71. Jumhuri-i Islami 120.72. Jumhuri-i Khalq-i Musal- 121.

man-i Iran. 122.73. Junbush 123.74. Kar 124.75. Kargar 125.

KartQnKhadangKhalqKhalq-i MusalmanKhurasanKhurus-i JangiLalahMahnamah-i putMard-i imruzMardumMardum-i IranMardum-i Iran (Ittihad-idimukratik)

Mash pasanMihr-i IranMu'allimMubariz (Organ of IranianWorkers' Organization)

Nabard-i maNabard-i millatNahib-i azadiNahTb-i gharbNahgat-i zanan-i MusalmanNamah-i ahangarN3shirNashriyah-i kargaran-iMusalmanNasirNavidNida-yi azadiNida-yi mihanNida-yi mustag'afNida-yi nasyunallstNidS-yi ZahidanNur-i KhurasanPanizdah-i KhurdadParkhashPasdarSnPayamPayam-i janlbPayam-i khalqPaygham-i imruzPaykSrPaykar-i khalqPayk-i junubPuyaQiyam-i IranRahayi-i zanRahnamSRanjbarRuydadSada-yi BSshihrSada-yi danishju

43

126. §ada-yi dunya 137.127. Sada-yi kargar 138.128. Sada-yi mu'asir 139.129. Sada-yi Qazvln 140.130. Saman (Simnan) 141.131. Sangar 142.132. Sarbaz va inqilab 143.133. Sawgand 144.134. Sipidah-i surkh 145.135. Sipihr 146.136. Sistan

Sitarah-i gharbSurush-i najatShahid-i gharbShanbah-'i surkhShafir al-shu'ara'ShihabSitarah-i IslamTufanUnnnatZan-i mubariz

Persian Periodicals

1. Arman (Journal of the 20.Org. of Iran's Youth 21.& Democratic Students) 22.

2. Asiya-yi javan 23.3 . Bamshad 24 .4. Buhlul 25.5 . Damavand6. Danishamuz7. Girahgusha 26.8. Guzarish-i ruz 27.9. Haft10. Iliktrunik 28.11. Inqilab-i 57 (Shlraz) 29.12. Istiqiai 30.13. Ittihad-i javan (for 31.

students) 32.14. Jadval-i katibah 33.15 . Javan 34 .16. Jumhuri 35.17. Jumhuri-i Islami18. Kargar bih pish (Org. for 36.

Struggle for Workers'Freedom)

19. Kargaran 37,

KawsarKhush khandahMahanMajallah-i karMajallah-i ruz-i haftumMaktab-i mubariz (Journalof Assoc. of Islamic Stu-dents in U.S.A. & Canada)

MihanNas (Journal of Assoc. ofWorkers & Students)Nasl-i nawPayk-i danishjuRagbar-i imruzRuydadnamah§awt al-ShahidShahidSurushUmid-i Iran (banned beforethe revolution)'Urvat al-vu^qa (by Studentsin the Islamic RepublicParty)Vizhah-i kltrgaran

Arabic Newspapers and Periodicals

1. al-Tariq 2. al-Shahid

Azeri Turkish Newspapers and Periodicals

1. Araz2. Azadliq (Azadlik)3. BirlTk4. Chanli Bil (Qanli Bel)5. Khalq suzu (Halk sozu)6. Kur Ughli (K5r Oglu)

Mulla Nasr al-Din (MollaNasreddin)Udlayurdi (Odlayordi)Sattar Khan (Sattar Han)Ulduz (Yildiz)VarlTq (Varlik)

8.9.10.11.12. Yuldash (Yoldas)

44

Kurdish Newspapers 1. Hiva

Selection Tools

Many private publishers have been issuing theircatalogs, but these appear irregularly and soon areout-dated. There is no equivalent to the AmericanTrade List Annual in Iran. The closest to it wasFihrist-i Intisharat-i 1352, a collective listing ofsome twenty publishers compiled on the anniversary ofthe 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy. In general itis hard to know what is currently published in Iran.Rahnama-yi Kitab, founded by the Book Society ofPersia in 1958, had a special section on new publica-tions and was a reliable source for most book pub-lishing, especially in recent years. A number ofsimilar but less regular book reviewing and listingjournals have appeared, such as Barrasl-i Kitab(Murvarld Publications), Kitab-i Imruz, Naqd vaTafcqiq, and Namah-i Kitab-daran-i Ir3n.Literaryperiodicals including Yaghmjf) SukharTj Nigin andVafrid have also carried book news every now and then.

The Iranian National Bibliography, presently aquarterly with annual cumulations, if published ina timely fashion, would serve as a good guide to cur-rent publishing in the private sector and for somegovernment publications. First published in 1954under the title Kitabshinasi-i Ir5n (Bibliographiede 1'lran) in 1956 it changed its name to Kitabha-yi -Iran (Bibliography of Persia) and was published byAnjuman-i Kitab (The Book Society of Persia).A cumulation of ten years from 1954 to 1963 was pub-lished in 1967 under the title Kitabshinasl-i Dah-salah-i Iran. It is arranged according to the DeweyDecimal Classification and contains subject, title,and author indexes. From 1963 to 1966 two "national"bibliographies were being published. Kitabha-yiIran ceased publication with volume thirteen and wassuperseded by Kitabshinasl-i Milll-i Iran, which ispublished by the National Library in Tehran. Initi-ally it was an annual and of little use for currentpublishing information. In 1969 and 1970 it came outmonthly and since 1972 it has been a quarterly with

45

annual cumulations. With the establishment of abook depository law in 1968 its coverage and formathave improved considerably. There is still the prob-lem of time lag in publication; sometimes it exceedssix months.

The Book Depository Law of 1968 does not applyto government publications. But due to the effortsof its compilers, recently many government documentshave actually been listed in the National Bibliogra-phy. There is no comprehensive guide to governmentpublications. Ever since its establishment in 1968the Iranian Documentation Center has been working onan index to government documents, but there is noevidence yet that this project is completed.

In 1975 the first subject guide to books inprint in Iran, Fihrist-i Maw^u'I-i Kitabha-yi Mawjuddar Bazar-i Iran, was published by the NationalLibrary. It included both private and public sectorpublications available in the market and it providedfull bibliographic information except for price.Owing to administrative and other difficulties it hasnot been kept up.

For retrospective buying, Khanbaba Mushar'sBiblography of Books Printed in Persian, in spite ofsome omissions,Isa comprehensiveguide. It listsapproximately 14,000 works printed in Iran, India,Turkey, and parts of Europe, and is arranged bytitle with a separate author index. A separate vol-ume compiled by Mushar covers Arabic books printedin Iran. A supplement to Mushar's Bibliography ofBooks Printed in Persian has just been completed.

Early issues of the Iranian National Bibliogra-phy are of some use for retrospective selection ofPersian imprints, but the ten-year cumulation pre-pared by Iraj Afshar and IJusayn Ban! Adam for 1954-1963 is easier to use. Mr. Ban! Adam's IranianSubject Bibliography (Kitabshinasl-i Mawgu'i-iIran),published by Bungah-i Tarjumah va Nashr-iKitab in 1974, is arranged by the Dewey Decimalclassification and contains some 7,500 Persian works.

Another important work for retrospective se-lection is al-Zarl'ah Ila Tasanlf al-Shl'ah by AghaBuzurg-i Tihrani,published in two dozen volumes.It covers both Persian and Arabic works by a titlearrangement.

In addition to those mentioned, several otherbibliographies of lesser importance have been issuedat different times. Afshar's Bibliography ofBibliographies provides a listing of most. A par-tial supplement to that bibliography is attached tothis paper.

46

Persian Collection Building in the U.S.A.

Persian collections in U.S. libraries were gene-rally based on private collections acquired duringthe mid-1950's through the efforts of concerned fa-culty and area specialists. After the World War II,in response to needs expressed in connection withnational defense, area studies assumed importance.The National Defense Education Act in 1958 providedfunds for scholarships and grants. The establish-ment of the Inter-University Summer Program in NearEastern languages offered intensive language coursesin Middle Eastern languages including Persian from1957 to 1967. The establishment in 1967 of two con-sortia of universities for sponsoring intensive pro-grams in Middle Eastern languages, the Peace CorpsProgram, the Foreign Service Institute School ofLanguages and Area Studies in the U.S. Department ofState, and of the Department of Defense Language In-stitute have all had their impact on the expansionof Middle Eastern area study programs including Iran-ian studies. And of late the Society of IranianStudies has played a major role in coordinating re-search and pointing to gaps in this area. All ofthis has resulted in recognition of the need foraccess to Persian language library resources in U.Sresearch libraries

Response to the need for building up Persiancollections has come in varying degrees from differ-ent institutions, depending on the extent of MiddleEastern library funds and staff allocations. Ingeneral, the growth of Persian collections has beenmuch slower and less systematic than the Arabic.While every major U.S. research Middle East collec-tion has had at least one Arabic specialist, thepresence of a Persian bibliographer or area special-ist as a full-time staff member has been either atemporary arrangement or an exceptional case. Therehave been problems of inadequate budget for Persianmaterials, irregularities and complexities of theIranian book trade, lack of a dependable dealer, theIranian restrictions on book export, postal shut-downs, and inflationary pressures.

No clear trend in the growth of book productionin Iran is evident. In recent years, UNESCO sta-tistics placed book production for 1971 at 2,190,and based on the development programs set up for thecountry since then an annual growth of 10% could bepredicted. But because of the reasons cited abovethis rate has not been realized. There has been

47

much fluctuation in the organization, quantity andquality of publishing. It is not unrealistic, how-ever, to assume that on the average about 2,200titles have been published annually in Iran since1971. About thirty-five percent of the Iranian pub-lishing output seems to be what Dr. D.H. Partingtondescribes as collectable for research needs in U.S.libraries.5 This would justify the acquisition ofsome 770 titles of current Persian materials by amajor Middle East collection. A questionnaire surveyof ten major Middle East collections (Library ofCongress, Harvard, Princeton, NYPL, Columbia, Michi-gan, Chicago, UCLA, UC at Berkeley, and the Universi-ty of Texas) complemented by on-site visits of thesecollections in May, 1979 indicates that librarieshave had varying degrees of success in acquiring the770 titles from Iran.

Some libraries reported budgetary limitationsas a reason for not having as much of Persian pub-lished material as they should. It was quite clearfrom conversations with the bibliographers that lackof an organized book dealer is the main reason formissing many current publications. In general, thelibraries surveyed can muster the money to buy thepublications they need for Persian collections if thebooks are offered to them. Since most of the MiddleEast collections do not have the required staff andtime to check book lists and bibliographies to fillthe gaps, those that have made buying trips to thearea have achieved much better coverage for currentand retrospective publications. The political de-velopments of 1978 and the ensuing postal strikescaused periodic disruptions in the acquisition ofPersian materials. Because of the experiences of thepast and the unpredictability of the situation in thefuture, evidently American libraries need some kindof cooperative acquisition program in Iran. It maybe best to hire a representative to be based in Iran.Working under the general guidance of U.S. MiddleEastern bibliographers and librarians, this repre-sentative could be a good asset by keeping informedof the publishing situation through visits to book-stores, research institutions and libraries, and bycollecting and shipping the material to the partici-pating libraries.

Abazar Sepehri

CFootnotes follow on next page]

48

1. Declaration by Guruh-i Azadi-i Kitab va Andishah, found inPayam-i Danishju, vol. h, Sept., 1977.

2. Kitab va Matbu'at dar Iran. Tehran: Iranian StatisticalCenter, 1973. pp. 19-25.

3. Barzin, Mas'ud. Matbu'at-i Iran, IS^S-SS. Tehran: Kitab-khanah-i Bihjat, 1976. pp. 8-10.

h. See attached list.

5. Cooperation among Middle East Libraries of North America:a Workshop held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, May 26-31, 1975,sponsored by the Middle East Librarians' Association, p.39.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Literacy and Reading

1. "Afrad-i Mutafarriqah, ya'ni_Afradi kin Kitabkhvan Nistand"(The non-reading public), Ayandagan, no. 2375 (8/28/5!*).

2. Ardalan, Faridun. "Zawq-i Mutala'ah dar Iran" (Interestin reading in Iran), Rahnama-yi Kitab, 9 (Sept., 1967),pp. 12-lU.

3. Ayramlu, Parviz. Ravish-i Sahih-i Mutala'ah (The correctway of reading). Tehran: AshrafI, 13̂ 7 C1968:. 56 p.

h. "Bayn-i Mardum va Kitab Juda'i Uftadah Ast" (A separationbetween books and people), KayhanTi Shahristanha, no. 1032

5- "Biganagi ba Kitab" (Alienation with books), Meshed, no.8160 (5/6/36).

6. "Chara Ustadan va Danishjuyan Kitab Namikhvanand?" (Whyprofessors and students do not read books?), Rastakhiz,no. 207 (10/15/51*).

7. "Chih Ishtibah-i Buzurgi Ast Agar Bikhvahim Afzayish-i Basa-vadan Ra Dalili bar Gustarish va Ghana-yi Farhang Bidanim"(What a big mistake to consider the increased number ofliterates as a proof of expansion and enrichment of edu-cation), Pars-i Shiraz, no. UllT (7A/36).

8. "Danishjuyan Bayad ba Hunar-i Kitabkhvani Ashna Shavand"(Students must get acquainted with the art of reading),Rastakhiz, no. 109 (10/17/5*+).

9. "Difa'-i Kitab" (In defence of books), I^ila'at, no.15̂ 68 (8/29/36).

10. "Faqr-i Kitab va Kitabkhvani dar Mu'assasat-i Amuzishi"(The poverty of books and book reading in educational in-stitutes), Rastakhiz, no. 217 (10/28/5M.

49

11. "Kambud-i Kitabkhvan Yak Durugh-i Tablighati Ast" (A Short-age of "book readers is a propaganda lie), Javanan-i Imruz,no. 118 (9/3/36).

12. "Kishvarha-yi Bar Hal-i Rushd ba Qahti-i Kitab RubardHastand" (The developing countries are facing a bookfamine), Javanan-i Rastakhiz, no. 117 (8/28/36).

13. "Kitab Parasti" (Book worshipping), Tamasha, no. 338(8/22/36).

ih. "Mutala'ah dar Barnamahha-yi Amuzishi JavarimJa'i Nadarad"(Reading has no place in the educational programs ofyoung people), Kayhan (I0/l8/5*t).

15- "Rabi-tah-'i Kam'savadi ba Girani-i Sarsam Avar-i Kitab"(The relationship between illiteracy and the soaringprice of books), Kayhan, no. 997 (6/30/35).

16. "Tabaqah-'i Basavad Bayad Kitab'khvaran Ra Firiftah-iKhud Bidanad" (The educated class must be attracted tobooks), Rastakhiz, no. 160 (8/8/5U).

Book Publishing, Printing,

And Distribution

1. Afshar, Iraj. Sayr-i Kitab dar Iran (Book trends in Iran).Tehran: Amir Kabir, 13̂ C19653 72 p.

2. Afsharpanah, Shahrukh. "UNESCO Regional Seminar on BookDistribution in Asia, Colombo, October 23-29, 197U,"Iranian Library Association Bulletin, 7: no. 3 (Autumn,1971*), PP. ^OU-l+lS.

3. "Aqayan-i Nashirha In Musabiqah Zidd-i Farhangi Ast"(Dear publishers, this competition is anti-cultural),Javanan-i Rastakhiz, no. 105 (3/6/36).

H. Ashna'i ba Kitab (Introduction to books). Tehran: Ittiha-diyah-' i Hashirin va Kitabfurushan, 13^+5-C1967- 3 v. 1-

5. "Az Kar-i Chap va Nashr Ghafilim" (We have neglected print-ing and publishing), Ayandagan, no. 236l (8/12/5U).

6. "Baha-yi Kitab Mushakhkhas Hist" (The book price has notbeen fixed), Rastakhiz, no. 690 (5/22/36).

7. "Baha-yi Kitab 50 dar Sad Girantar az Gimat-i Tamam ShudahAst" (The price of books is 50 % more than actual cost),Kayhan, no. 10022 (9/1/35).

8. "Baz Ham Mu'izah Darbarah-'i Kitab" (Again preaching aboutbooks), Kayhan, no. 9859 (2/21/53).

50

9. "Bazar-i Kitab Pur Rawnaq va Umidvar Kunandah" (Book marketbrisk and hopeful), Rastakhiz, no. jkh (7/25/36).

10. Barrasi-i Mushkilat-i Hashr-i Kitab" (A study of the prob-lems of book publishing), Teheran Economist, no. 1021(10/15/52).

11. Behn, Wolfgang. "Book Production in Iran; its bibliographiccontrol and cost," MELA NOTES, no. 6 (October, 1975),pp. 10-13.

12. "Bisu-yi Hall-i Mushkil-i Asasi" (Toward the solution ofthe main problem), Rastakhiz, no. 163 (8/31/5̂ ).

13. "Book Sale Boom Hints at a Wind of Change," Kayhan Inter-national, no. 5808 (9/3/35).

Ik. "Breakthrough for Scholars," Tehran Journal, no. 5609(3/12/51).

15. "Chara Bazar-i Kitab In Hamah Kasad Ast?" (Why is the bookmarket so dull?), Burs, no. 27̂ 8 (5/29/51).

16. "Chara Tirazh-i Kitab dar Iran Kam Ast?" (Why is book circu-lation so low in Iran?), gubh-i Imruz, no. 52U (6/6/51).

17. Craig, Bruce. "Report on a Study of Middle East Book Pub-lishing Figures," MELA NOTES, 1* (March, 1975), pp. 22-21+.

18. "Digar Sarmayahguzari Ru-yi Nashr-i Kitab Khatari MahsubNamishavad" (Investment in publishing is no longer con-sidered a risk), Rastakhiz, no. 8l (5/13/51*).

19. "Giranl-i Kaghaz Chap-i Kitab Ra Bih Buhran Kashidah" (Thehigh cost of paper has brought a crisis to book printing),Ittihad-i Milli, no. 121*0 (U/25/53).

20. "Hamahang Kardan-i Kitab ba Pishraft-i Iqtisadi" (Coordi-nating publishing with economic progress), Kayhan, no.9280 (3/20/53).

21. "ijad-i Shabakah-'i Gustardah va Munazzam-i Tawzi'-i KitabZaruri Ast" (It is necessary to create an expanded andregular network of book distribution), Rastakhiz, no. 5^1*(11/25/35).

22. "I'lan-i Khatar-i Hashiran-i Kitab" (A warning by publishers),Pars-i ShJraz, no. 380U (It/10/53).

23. "Inhisartalabl dar Kitabfurushi" (Monopoly in bookselling),Sipid va Siyah, no. 105̂ (10/19/52).

2k. "Jum'ah Bazar-i Kitab" (Friday, the day for bookselling),Kayhan, no. 8852 (1/20/51).

25. "Kalbudshikafi-i Iqtisad-i Kitab" (An anatomy of book eco-nomics), Rastakhiz, no. hj2 (8/29/35).

26. "Khabarha-'i az Kitab" (News of books), Ayandagan, no.2082 (8/30/53).

27. "Kitab ra Arzan Kunim" (Let us make books cheaper), KayhSn,no. 9716 (8/27/51*).

51

28. "Dawlat Bayad Bih Chap va Intishar-i Kitab Kumak Kunad"(The government must assist in the printing and publica-tion of books), Kayhan- i Shahristanha, no. 9860 (2/22/35).

29. Markaz-i Amar-i Iran. Kitab va Ma^bu'at dar Iran (Books andthe press in Iran). Tehran: The Center, 1352 C1973H.

30. Moradi , Nourollah and Fani , Kamran. Book Production andPublication: from author's manuscript to the printed copy.Tehran: Iranian Library Association, 1973.

31. "Kitabfurush Bishtar az Kitabnivis Mafhum-i Kitab ra Mlfah-mad" (Booksellers understand books better than writers),Java.na.n-i Rastakhiz, no . 10U .

32. Musahab, Mahmud. Kitab dar Iran(Book situation in Iran).Tehran: Majallah-i Rahnama-yi Kitab, 13^2 £1963 3

33. "Mushkil-i Kitab va Arzyabi-i Qimatha" (The book problem andevaluation of prices), Rastakhiz, no. 688 (5/19/36).

31*. "Mushkil-i Hashr-i Kitab" (The problem of publishing),Firdawsi, no. lll*8 (11/1/52)

35. "Nashirin Bayad Takhassusi Dashtah Bashand" (Publishers mustspecialize), Ayandagan ', no. 2367 (8/18/51*).

36. "Nashiran Ganj-i Qarun va Sabr-i Ayyub Darand" (Publishersneed Qarun's treasure and Ayyub's patience), IttilS'at ,no. 11*076 (1/29/52).

37. "Nashiran-i Kitab Muvajih ba Buhranand" (Book publishers arefacing a crisis), Ittila'at. no. ihklk (3/28/53).

38. "Nashiran: Ma tajir Nlstim" (Publishers: we are not mer-chants), Javanan-i Rastakhiz, no. 72 (8/27/35).

39- "Nashiran-i Ma Tajiran-i Bizawq Hastand" (Our publishers aretasteless merchants), Rastakhiz, no. 209 (10/7/51*).

kO. "Nashiran-i Paytakht bih Kitabkhvan va Kitabfurush-i Shah-ristanha Ijhaf Mikunand" (Publishers in the capital arebeing unfair to the provincial book readers and sellers),Kayhan , no. 9719 (9/1/51*).

1*1. New York State University. International Studies and WorldAffairs Center. Book Production and Distribution in Iran;a study of needs with recommendations within the contextof social and economic development, prepared by Harold G.Fjivmerson (et al.). Oyster Bay, N.Y., 1966. hh p.Contract AID/csd-1199 .

1+2. "Nigahi bih Rabitah-i Nashir va Kitabfurushi" (A look at therelationship between publishers and booksellers), Kayhan ,no. 10103 (12/8/35).

it3. "Nigahi bih Vaz'-i Kitab Dar Sail kih Guzasht" (A glance atthe book situation during the past year), Ayandagan , no.1581 (12/29/51).

52

1*1*. "Pakhsh-i Kitab dar Sarasar-i Kishvar bib. Shirkat-i Ta'avuniVazguzar Shud" (Book distribution delegated to coopera-tives throughout the country), Ayandagan, no. 238**(9/9/51*).

1*5. Partington, David H. "Book Production in the Middle East,"MELA MOTES, 5 (April, 1975), pp. lU-18.

k6. Pearson, James. "Current Publications for Non-WesternStudies," Library Quarterly, 35 (1965), pp. 373-382.

1*7. Rahnama-yi Kitab (Guide to books). Tehran: Book Society,1956-

1*8. "Rukud-i Bazar-i Kitab ba 'Alaqamand Sakhtan-i Mardum Bi-mutala'ah Payan Miyabad" (The stagnation in the book mar-ket can end by making people interested in reading), Burs,no. 2733 (9/6/51).

1*9. "Rukud-i Bazar-i Kitab Hamchinan Idamah Darad" (The stagna-tion in the book market still continues), Rastakhiz, no.162 (8/20/51*).

50. "Rukud-i Guzashtah va Rawnaq-i Kununi-i Bazar-i Kitab"(Past stagnation and the present swing in the book market),Rastakhiz, no. 775 (9/3/36).

51. Schnidel, M. "Report from Iran," Horn Book, 1*3 (Dec., 1967),726 ff.

52. "Shish Mah: Shishsad 'Unvan Kitab" (Six months, 600 titles),Rastakhiz, no. jk2 (6/22/36).

53. Tabandah, K. "Kitab dar Iran," Kitab-i Imruz (Winter, 1971*),pp. 59-60.

51*. "Tahavvuli Tazah dar Kar-i Ta'lif va Nashr-i Kitab FarahamMishavad" (Authorship and publishing to be revolutionized),Ibtikar, no. 318 (10/17/52).

The Press

1. Abu Ziya, Parvin. Directory of Iranian Newspapers. Tehran:Iranian Documentation Center, 1971-

2. 'Asgari, Muhammad Riza. Huquq-i Matbu'at (The rights of thepress). Tehran: University of Tehran, Faculty of SocialCommunications, 1351 (1972).

53

3. "Barrasi-i Matbu'at-i Iran" (Survey of Iranian press),Ittila'at, no. 1̂ 989 (2/1/35).

it. Barzin, Mas'ud. Matbu'at-i Iran, 13^3-1353 (Iranian press,1961(-Tl4). Tehran: Bihjat, 1351* [1975].

5. ———————— . Tarikh-i Matbu'at-i Iran (History of Iranianpress). Tehran, 13^5 [1966].

6. "Matbu'at-i Iran" (Iranian press), Burs, no. 351*? (1/19/35)

7. "Hamayishi az Pishraftha-yi Chashmgir-i Matbu'at dar Dahsal-iAkhir" (An exhibition of the press progress in the lastdecade), Fada-yi Iran-i Nuvin, no. 1958 (8/25/51).

8. "Pishraftha-yi Fanni va Chashmgir-i Matbu'at-i Iran darDahah-'i Akhir" (Technical and noticeable changes in theIranian press in the last decade), Azhang, no 339(8/25/51).

9. Rizvani, Muhammad Isma'il. Tarlkh-i Matbu'at (History ofthe press). Tehran: University of Tehran, Faculty ofSocial Communications, 1351 [1972].

10. Sadr Hashimi , Muhammad. Tarikh-i Jarayid va Majallat (His-tory of newspapers and periodicals). Isfahan, 1327-28

11. Salihyar, Ghulam Husayn. Chashm^andaz-i Jahani va Vizhagi-ha-yi Irani-i Matbu'at (World scene and Iranian charac-teristics of press). Tehran: Ministry of Information andTourism, 2535 [1976:

12. Soltani , Poori . Directory of Iranian Periodicals. Tehran:Iranian Documentation Center, 1970.

13. Sulhju, Jahanglr. Tarikh-i Matbu'at-i Iran va Jahan(History of Iranian and world press). Tehran: Amir Kabir,

[19693

lit. Button, Elwell. "Iranian Press, 19̂ 7, " Journal of PersianStudies, no 5 , fcept . 1979 ) .

54

PARTIAL SUPPLEMENT TO IRAJ AFSHAR'S

"BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES

FOR IRANIAN STUDIES"

COMPILED BY

ABAZAR SEPEHRI

1. Anvar, 'Abd Allah. Fihrlst-i Musakh-i Khatti-1 Kitab-khanah-i Mill!. Tehran: Idarah-i Kull-i Kitabkhanah'ha,Vizarat-i Farhang va Hunar, 1352 C19733

2. Bani Adam, Husayn. Kitabshinasi-i Amuzish va Parvarish.Tehran: Anjuman-i Kitab, 13^6 C1967D.

3. Bayani, Mahdi. Kitabshinasi-i Kitabha-yi Khatti. Tehran:Anjuman-i As_ar-i Milli, 1353 C1971*:.

1+. Afshar, Iraj . Fihrist-i Kitabha-yi Khatti-i Kitabkhanah-iMilli-i Malik, 1352- L1973- 3.

5. Afshar, Iraj. Kitabshinasi-i Dahsalah, 1333-13^2. Tehran:Anjuman-i Kitab, 13^6 C1967H.

6. Afshar, Iraj. Rahnama-yi Tahqiqat-i Irani. Tehran: Mar-kaz-i Barrasi va Mu'arrifi-i Farhang-i Iran, 13^9 C1970H.

7. Atabay, Badri. Fihrist-i Kutub-i Dlni va Ma^habi-i Khatti-iKitabkhanah-i Saltanati. Tehran: Kitabkhanah-i Saltanati,1352 [1973:].

8. Dlbaj, Ibrahim. Fihrist-i Huskhah'ha-yi Khatti-i Kitab-khanah-i Hurbakhsh. Tehran: Khanqah-i Hi"mat Allah!,1352 C1973]

9. Fakhir, Husayn. Kutub va Asnad-i Tarikhi-i Raj i* bih Irandar Ispaniya. Tehran: Cs.n.3, 131*1* C1965:

10. Farmanfarmayan, Hafiz . Kitabshinasi-i Tarikh-i Jadid vaMu'asir-i Iran! Tehran: Tahuri, 131*1* C19653.

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11. Farmanf armayan , Hafiz. Kitabshinasi-i Tarikh~i Mashrutl-yat-i Iran. Tehran: Amir Kabir, IS1*? C1966D.

12. Farzanahpur, Ghulam Riza. Fihrist-i Asnad va Mukatibat-iTarikhi-i Iran. Tehran: Cs.n.D, 1333-1339 C1951*-1960D .

13. Fihrlst-i Kitab Bara-yi Kudakan va Hawjavanan. Tehran:Shura-yi Kitab-i Kudak, 13^2 C1963D.

ill . Fihrist-i Mawzu'i-i Intisharat-i Danishgah-i Tihran.Tehran: Danishgah, 13̂ 2 C1963H.

15. Fihrist-i 15 Salah-i (1333-13̂ 7) Mu'assasah-'i Intisharat-iFiranklin. Tehran: Mu'assasah, 13^9 C1970D.

16. Ibn Nadlm. al-Fihrist ; translated by Riza Mazandarani .Tehran: Ibn Sina, 13!* 3

IT. Ibn Yusuf Shirazi , Ziya' al-Din. Fihrist-i Kitabkhanah- ' i'Ali-i Sipahsalar'.' Tehran: Matba'ah-i Majlis, 1315C1936J.

18. Karimi, Khusraw. Fihrist-i Mawzu'i-i Kitabha-yi Mawjud darBazar-i Iran. Tehran: Kitabkhanah-i Milli, 1351* C19T53.

19 . Kitabshinasi-i Mawzu'i-i Iran, 13̂ 3-13̂ 8. Tehran : Bungah-iTarjumah va Nashr-i Kitab, 1352 C19733.

20. Kitabshinasi-i Tawsifi-i Kitabha-yi Munasib bara-yi Naw-j avanan . Tehran: Anjuman-i Kitab, 1353 £197^3.

21. Mahbubi Ardakani , Husayn. Kitabshinasi-i Kitabha-yiKhatti-i Mahdi Bayani. Tehran: Cs.n.D, 1352 C1973H.

22. Majdu1 , Isma'il ibn 'Abd al-Rasul. Fihrist al-Kutubwa-al-Rasa'il. Tehran: Cs.n.D, IjM C1965].

23. Maqsud, Javad. Fihrist-i Huskhah^ha-yi Khatti-i Kitab-khanah^ha-yi 'Umumi-i Isfahan. Tehran: ' Cs.n.D, 13l*9C1970D

2k. Markaz-i Khadamat-i Kitabdari. Surat-i Kitabha-yi FihristShudah dar Markaz . Tehran: Markaz, 1350- C1971- D.

25. Mazahiri, Nasir. Kitabshinasi-i Hukhustin Dahah- ' iinqilab. Tehran: Kitabkhanah-i Milli, 1352 C1973D.

26. Mxmzavi, Ahmad. Fihrist-i Huskhah^ha-yi Farsi. Tehran:Sazman-i'Farhangi-i Hamkari-i Mantiqah'i, 13̂ 9 C1970D.

27- Nasr, Husayn. Kitabshinasi-i Tawsifi-i Abu Rayhan Biruni.Tehran: Markaz-i Mutala'at va Hamahangi-i Farhangi ,1352 C1973D.

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28. Rawshan, Muhammad. Fihrist-i Huskhah^ha-yi Khatti-iKitabkhanah^ha-yi Rasht va Hamadan. Tehran: Farhang-iIran Zamin, 1353

29. Rawshan, Muhammad. Fihrist-i Huskhah^ha-yi Khatti-i Kitab-khanah- 'i 'Umumi-i Jam' lyat-i Mashr-i Farhang-i Shahr-iRasht . Tehran: Farhang-i Iran Zamin, 1352- C19T3- 3.

30. Rawgati, Muhammad 'All. Fihrist-i Kutub-i Khatti-i Kitab-khanah^ha-yi Isfahan. Cs.n.D, 13̂ 1 C19623."

31. Shakiri, Ramazan 'All. Fihrlst-i Kututi-i Khatti-i Kitab-khanahxha-yi 'Umumi-i Farhang va Hunar- i Mashhad. Mashhad:Cs.n.D , 13̂ 8 C19693.

32. Ta'avuni, Shir in. Kitabnamah- ' i Kitabdari . Tehran:Mu'assasah-'i Tahqiqat va Barnamah'rizi-i ' Ilmi vaAmuzishi, 1352 [19733.

33. Teheran. Danishgah. Danishkadah-'i Ilahiyat va Ma'arif-iIslam! . Kitabkhanah. Fihrist-i Kltabkhanah- ' i Ilahiyatva Ma'arif-i Islam! . Tehran Cs.n.D, 13U5 C1966D.

31*. Teheran. Danishgah. Kitabkhanah. Fihrist-i Mikrufilm^ha-yiKitabkhanah- ' i Markazl. Tehran: Danishgah, 13^5 C1966].

35- U'faradi Quchani , 'Aziz Allah. Makhtut^t-i Far si darMadlnah-'i Munawarah. CTehran: s.n.J, 131*6 C19673.

57

C u r r e n t P r o b l e m s In The A c q u i s i t i o nOf L i b r a r y M a t e r i a l s From Turkey

Whereas preceding reports come from professionalMiddle East librarians, the observations offered hereon current problems in the acquisition of library ma-terials from Turkey are those of a long-time "patron"of Middle East collections and of a private collectorof Turkish works on the history, politics and litera-ture of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey.Thus, these remarks are set forth with some trepida-tion before this forum, and with the fear that theymay bear on knowledge commonplace among the membersof MELA. It may, on the other hand, prove a some-what refreshing novelty to receive these views froma person outside the pale of library science.

The principal problem to be addressed here isnot strictly "current" in nature. Rather, it is theold and continuing matter of the long "sellers' mar-ket" in Turkish publications of virtually all genresendured by collectors for at least the past thirtyyears. The fact that the sellers still dominate thismarket is amply illustrated by the steadily decreas-ing frequency one notes in the dissemination of salescatalogues by Turkish booksellers during the lasthalf decade. There is simply little need of such ca-talogues or, for that matter, of any sort of adver-tisement so far as the dealers are concerned; and wein this hemisphere remain the losers for it. As amatter of fact, all forms of publicity from nativedealers in Turkish materials have become so infrequentthat the irregular issues of Turkiye Bibliyografyasi,published by the Milli Kutuphane (National Library)in Ankara, now emerge as our best printed source ofpublishing news from Turkey.1 Turkish law requiresthat a copy of all material printed there be submittedto the Milli Kutuphane for cataloguing, retention,

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and entry in Turkiye Bibliyografyasi. Many publish-ers, however, are not prompt in fulfilling this re-quirement, and the staff at the library are them-selves hard-pressed to remain abreast of incomingmaterials. Hence, their journal falls considerablyshort of an ideal vehicle for the timely distributionof publication notices.

Given the foregoing observations on the "sellers'market" in Turkish library materials, one may wellask the reasons for such a strange situation. Theyare both simple and complex in character. AlthoughTurkey has produced on average about 3,000 new titles(one-third of them translations of foreign works) peryear in recent times, individual impressions seldomexceed 4,000 copies.2 This limitation may be attrib-uted to two possible factors: (1) the continuing needto import immense supplies of paper in an economicsystem desperately short of foreign credits-^ and(2) a continuing Turkish dedication to long-estab-lished Middle Eastern business practices, whereby theentrepreneur seeks a rapid turn-over of his goodswhile minimizing the risks of accumulating surplusstocks or of damage to his inventory in storage.These factors also go a long way towards explainingthe large number of small bookshops one finds in thesahaflar districts of Istanbul and Ankara, and thevery noticeable lack of large shops throughout Turkey.

The entire web of cause and effect outlined tothis point draws all the more tightly for us on thiscontinent with the addition of two final strands:(1) the consistently modest costs of publishing inTurkey, and (2) the sheer physical distance betweenTurkey and ourselves. These two circumstances inthemselves often contribute to the exhaustion, ornearly so, of many valuable Turkish publications be-fore North American scholars and librarians even be-come aware of their very existence. The relativelylow prices set on such materials place them withinthe budgets of a very large sector of the rapidlygrowing literate public in Turkey; and whatever re-mains in the way of stocks is usually snatched up byEuropean scholars and book dealers who obviously enjoyrelative proximity to the publishers. This laterfact, moreover, reflects the wider and deeper interestin Turkish studies prevailing in Europe than in NorthAmerica.

In view of the enduring importance of personalrelationships in the conduct of business throughoutthe Middle East, the value of a long-established ac-count with a Turkish bookseller—an account to whichthe seller cannot only attach a personal name but aface as well—can scarcely be over-emphasized. Putbluntly, an account based on fairly frequent personal

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contacts receives priority from the Turkish book-seller—to the degree that items supposedly reservedfor a less familiar account suddenly and mysteriouslydisappear, probably to re-emerge on the invoice of amore familiar account. Thus, frequency of personalcontacts alone contributes immeasurably to the suc-cess of our European competitors in the rough-and-tumble arena of Turkish acquisitions. These buyershave further added to our own difficulties by pamper-ing the booksellers of Istanbul with a large volumeof "cash-and-carry" transactions. The small bookshopsof Istanbul obviously prefer such sales over theponderous, bureaucratic methods of acquisition now invogue among the large libraries of North America.In short, our systems of acquisition are simply tooinflexible and impersonal to serve us well in Turkey.

The sad results of this long chain of adversecircumstances are apparent in the sales catalogues ofprominent European dealers in Middle Eastern publi-cations, where one often notes items priced at tentimes the cost of acquisition in Turkey.4 The newRedhouse Turkish-English dictionary is just one casein point. The rapid disappearance of the 1974 Li-brarie du Liban (Beirut) reprint of the 1890 editionto the "old" Redhouse lexicon portrays a double exam-ple wherein both the original edition and the recentreprint of it—in addition to all of the other, oldeditions printed from 1890 to 1923--now command largesums in the marketplace. The latter case even sug-gests a sinister propensity for hoarding among somedealers. Whereas the 1974 reprint originally soldfor $60, it is now advertized at over $100. At leasta score of similar examples come to mind here, butneed one really gone on? In consequence of the fore-going observations, the disposal of rather modestTurkish collections in North America now become eventsfor considerable interest among Turkologists here.The present writer is aware of four such instanceswithin the past ten years.

The question of how our libraries and universi-ties have coped with this entire situation to datelogically arises at this point—and, perhaps more im-portant: how we all can overcome these difficultiesboth singly and cooperatively. Limitations of timeand space preclude a full discussion here of the firstportion of this question. The presence of only onemember of Turkish origins at this MELA conference at-tests to the relatively small interest in Turkishstudies evident today on this continent, already no-ted herein. Since general interest is slight, itfollows that institutional resources for support, inthe forms of staff, faculty and funds devoted to theacquisition of Turkish materials, are also proportion-

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ately meagre. Thus, a large number of Turkish worksuseful to scholars in virtually all Middle EasternStudies are overlooked by many of our libraries.Some do not even appear in the National Union Cata-logue for whichever period one may consult. In short,no library on this continent has really solved thecomplex of problems posed here. Of course, some havebeen more successful than others, and the extentthereof is a measure of respective resources avail-able to acquisition efforts.

The more successful libraries usually enjoy theservices of native Turks or of "old Turkey hands"of other origins who keep a finger on the pulse ofthe publishing business of Istanbul and Ankara byfairly regular trips there or through correspondencewith colleagues there—or both. Similarly, such li-braries usually strive to cultivate a close workingrelationship with one or more of the well establishedbookstores of Istanbul.5 Nevertheless, the collec-tions assembled to date by even our more successfullibraries tend to reflect the individual interestsand prejudices of those who helped to build them.So, "balanced" collections, permitting expansion ofcourse offerings in our universities, remain rare.Although a few Middle Eastern libraries in the UnitedStates known to this writer have amassed impressivecollections of manuscripts and out-of-date publica-tions from Turkey, one can nevertheless challengetheir capacity for keeping abreast of new materials.Some large collections merely represent the productof a single, sustained effort on the part of one ortwo dedicated scholars.

A glance at the other end of the spectrum ofTurkish collections, the end reflecting modest hold-ings and libraries hopeful of starting a Turkish col-lection, reveals a rather bleak backdrop of. obstacles.And, the veteran collector blanches to anticipate thefuture there under current conditions for acquisi-tions. Unless this scene shifts soon, the experi-enced observer can foresee a setting wherein "therich get richer and the poor...." The added questionstands forth dramatically here as to whether or notmaterials even exist in sufficient quantity to pro-vide all current Middle Eastern collections withholdings adequate for serious programs in Turkishstudies. A conservative view of the marketplace sug-gests that available materials fall short of such amark. Of course, a more definitive reply to thisquestion would depend on thorough knowledge of theinventory of Turkish courses now offered and projec-ted at all institutions of learning in this country.Even should such a survey be available, experienceand intuition point to a shortage of many importantworks.

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Turning finally to the second aspect to the ques-tion of solutions raised above, great hope for indi-vidual approaches seems remote. Holders of modestTurkish collections might resort to the methods fol-lowed by our more successful libraries if such actionfalls within their means. All libraries, despite thestate of their Turkish holdings, can take more aggres-sive action in screening the critiques and notices ofnew Turkish publications found in the various journalsproduced by the faculties and institutes of the majoruniversities of Ankara and Istanbul.6 Given, however,delays in postal service from Turkey to remote destin-ations, plus even greater slowness peculiar to thevery appearance of critiques and notices in Turkishjournals in the first place, one can foresee a lackof timeliness even in this course of action. Sincerapidly rising airfares promise to make travel toTurkey by North American scholars and library offic-ials even more infrequent than at present, a cooper-ative approach to acquisition efforts there seemsall the more desirable.

The most obvious and economical course, by wayof a cooperative acquisition effort in Turkey, is ajoint subsidy of an established scholar in Turkishstudies who needs funds to support an extended visitthere. Both the American Research Institute in Tur-key (ARIT), with branches in Istanbul and Ankara, andthe Turkish Studies Association (TSA) surely canidentify and recommend scholars in search of assis-tance—who would be willing to represent a group oflibraries in patrolling Turkish bookstalls. EveryTurkologist worth his salt spends much of his time inIstanbul at book shopping in any case. Since boththe Istanbul and Ankara branches of ARIT maintainvaluable Turkish collections on their own premises,a collective arrangement for acquisition among MELAlibraries may also prove feasible through the branchdirectors or their librarians. TSA, on the otherhand, can identify native Turkish scholars who planto visit North America. Such scholars not only canprovide news of Turkish publishing events—and worksin progress—but can even undertake a role in ac-quisition for us, given appropriate incentives.

Whatever may be the specific approaches taken bylibraries here in acquiring Turkish materials, thisobserver urges one general policy for all: when indoubt, buy! Regardless of recent, world-wide infla-tionary trends in the publishing industry, Turkishworks of all genres remain all-time bargains. WhileTurkish publishing costs, like those everywhere, haverisen sharply, drastic devaluations of the liraagainst the dollar since 1970 have held prices forforeign buyers relatively static to the present.7

Robert F. Zeidner

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1. Issued quarterly on average.

2. These 3,000 titles do not include the great massof often heavy tomes produced by the "official"presses in the forms of government reports andstudies. In the private sector, reprints alsoadd significantly to these titles. Reprints,however, lag far behind demand in the market-place, as demonstrated by the great number of"out-of-stock" entries found in the sales cata-logues of the Turk Tarih Kurumu (The Turkish His-torical Society).For further information on theprivate sector in Turkish publications, see:Herbert R. Lottman, "The Foreign Desk: The TurkishMarket for Books," Publishers Weekly 216 (No. 8,20 August, 1979): 64.

3. Governmental control of scarce stocks of paperhas often figured as a subtle fashion of presscensorship in Turkey since World War II.

4. This is true of both out-of-print and new mater-ials—and of serials as well as monographs.

5. The booksellers, in turn, often suggest and setaside for old customers new or rare works of pos-sible interest.

6. They are: in Ankara—Ankara University, HacettepeUniversity and Middle East Technical University;in Istanbul--Istanbul University, Istanvul Techni-cal University and Bogazicji University (formerlyRobert College).

7. The lira has fallen steadily in the past decadefrom a ratio of 9:1 to almost 80:1.

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P r o b l e m s Of The M i d d l e E a s t S p e c i a l i s t

In Smal l L i b r a r ie s

This paper deals with the problems encountered bythe area specialist librarian, specifically the MiddleEastern specialist of a small vernacular language col-lection in a small to medium-size research library.

The first problem encountered in the smaller col-lection, and probably the most potentially devastingone, is the identification and acquisition of titleswhich fall within the parameters of the collection de-velopment profile and which the budget can accomodate.If this cannot be dealt with successfully, the otherproblem areas will never be of concern!

Desirable individual titles must be identified assoon after publication as possible, since printings ofscholarly materials in the Middle East—as in many ofthe world's developing countries—are limited to a fewhundred copies and go out-of-print very quickly; iftitles are not ordered within approximately two yearsafter publication, the chances of acquiring them, evenat increased cost, are very slender. National bibli-ographies are few, frequently appear only after alapse of several years beyond the publication yearspecified, and are not usually comprehensive in cover-age. As a result, dealers' catalogs and the MiddleEast Accessions Listl are our best sources of infor-mation about what is being published in the area.

Limited staff time (which will be discussed morefully in other sections) often forces much selectiononto the teaching faculty. Undeniably, the teachingfaculty are in the best position to evaluate worth-while scholarly contributions, just as they should beeminently aware of what is being published in thefields of specialization, and what titles will supportcurrent and future course offerings. However, facultymembers also are very busy and, often, book selectionis relegated to a position of low priority in theirschedules, leaving the perusal of catalogs and sug-gested titles until semester breaks, summer vacation,etc. This causes delays in ordering and, sometimes,

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difficulty in budgetary allocations, especiallytoward the end of the fiscal year. Teaching facultyalso may tend to concentrate on the development ofthe collection in the area of their own interests tothe neglect of other areas, the result being that thecollection is not well balanced. The area specialistlibrarian, then, must monitor selections as to budget,balance the collection's development and notify fa-culty of important titles mentioned outside the usualreview media and selection tools.

As mentioned earlier, prompt ordering is essen-tial to assure obtaining desired titles. The soonerafter publication a title is ordered, the greater thechance of obtaining it. When a dealer's cataloglists a title, only two or three copies may be instock and a six-month delay in placing the order prob-ably means the dealer will have to search for it inO-P stocks; this can severely reduce the odds of everadding this title to the collection. The cost to adealer of searching for an O-P title means that hemay not be willing to do it for a low-volume customer,such as the small collection, or that he will supplymaterials only at increased cost, often prohibitiveto our limited budgets. Blanket order plans, whichunder other circumstances might solve the problem ofidentifying desired titles quickly, are not feasiblewhen funds are very limited and a broad range of sub-jects must be covered.

The small size of a collection often means nofull-time staff commitment. The area specialist li-brarian often has part-time responsibilities in theacquisitions, cataloging, reference and/or serialsdepartments. When there is a full-time professionalstaff member devoted to the vernacular language col-lection, the volume of work usually does not justifythe hiring of full-time clerical assistance. Theresult: the area specialist performs many clericaltasks, such as pre-order and pre-cat bibliographicsearching, but especially typing (of master cards,references, etc.) and physical processing. Studentassistants are heavily depended upon to perform cleri-cal tasks, at great expense, since they require longtraining in the wide variety of tasks involved andthen often stay on the job only one or two semesters.

The scarcity of authorities for Arabic headingscauses a particularly acute problem in the smallercollection, as the specialist must spend much timesearching for established forms of headings and,often,when no authoriety can be found, must establish theheading locally. While the Arabic Script Union List^and the forthcoming Near East National Union List,which will provide an even wider data base, have im-proved the situation, this area is a dramatic example

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of the need for cooperative efforts among librariesto share authority information and bibliographicrecords.

Generally, vernacular language materials must behandled outside the basic work flow of the library'sprocessing procedures. Increased chances for typo-graphical and other clerical errors exist due tostaff unfamiliarity with the languages and specialneeds of these materials. This is particularly no-ticeable in catalog filing, where creative approachesto the dilemmas created by "unusual" headings oftenscatter the same heading in several places in thecatalog.

While these problems are not unique to the smallMiddle East collection—indeed, they are universalwithin librarianship as a whole and are experiencedto a greater or lesser degree in all Middle East col-lections--they are intensified when one person hand-les all aspects of the collection. It is impossiblefor this person to be in several places simultaneous-ly, and the juggling necessary to keep books ordered,to supervise searching, to create original biblio-graphic records, and to be available for referenceservice, often means that inadequate attention isgiven to special projects until forgotten or untilthey reach crisis proportions, requiring "first-aid"measures. On the other hand, there is a decided ad-vantage in having responsibility for the collectionclearly centralized, allowing the area specialist—given adequate funds and administrative lee-way--toreadily assess his or her professional accomplish-ments.

Brenda Bickett

Prepared by the Cairo Library of Congress Office,it includes all titles acquired through the PL-480program and distributed to major Middle East col-lection in the U.S.A. Most titles are in Arabic;all are published in the Arab world.

•}Published in microfiche by MELA, Ann Arbor, 1978;1st Supplement, 1979.

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B i b l i o g r a p h i c I n s t r u c t i o n Fo r S t u d e n t s OfT h e M i d d l e E a s t

Introduction

Library literature pertaining to bibliographicinstruction in academic libraries has grown steadilyin the past five years, most noticeably since the pub-lication of a document prepared by the ACRL Bibliogra-phic Instruction Task Force in 1975 which outlined aset of guidelines and provided a model statement ofinstructional objectives. While occasional articleshave dealt with the planning and development of pro-grams for subject bibliography, most of the literaturefocuses on general bibliographic instruction at theundergraduate level. The recommendations and guide-lines discussed in these works are sufficiently broadto lend themselves to adaptation by area specialists,and in recognition of this the present paper will at-temp a synthesis of the recurring themes and princi-ples. At the same time, however, the role of anarea studies librarian, the identification of his/herclientele, and the very nature of Middle Eastern bib-liography pose unique problems which further compli-cate the already difficult task of developing effec-tive instructional programs. Therefore, a section ofthis discussion will be devoted to identifying someof these problems and offering suggestions towardtheir solution. I must state explicitly from thestart that many of my observations are subjective: Ihave not yet attempted a formal survey of students inMiddle Eastern studies at Harvard University, nor haveI solicited the opinions of my MELA colleagues con-cerning the unique problems of Middle Eastern biblio-graphic instruction. Rather, I contacted a small num-ber of my MELA associates who work at libraries whichI suspected might be actively promoting bibliographicinstruction, to request descriptions of programs theyhad designed. Therefore, these observations are bynecessity limited to my experience in assisting stu-dents at Harvard and to my recent deliberations overhow to implement an effective instructional program

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at Harvard.The Harvard University Library system is highly

decentralized, thereby making it extremely difficultto mandate uniform policies or practices concerningbibliographic instruction. Because the College Libra-ry has only recently undertaken general B I programsaimed at reaching large numbers of students, the levelof bibliographic expertise varies dramatically amongdifferent segments of the student population. There-fore, some of the suggestions offered in this paperwill not apply to the requirements of your own situa-tion. Luckily, however, we have active practitionersof the art among us, and can turn to each other forguidance and even inspiration.

Background

Bibliographic instruction, variously referred toas library orientation or library instruction, seeksto educate patrons in the role of the library in meet-ing information needs. While recognizing that orien-tation to the physical aspects of a library setting,such as the location of various tools, facilities,and departments, is a necessary component of libraryeducation, the primary focus of instructional programsis on the bibliographic apparatus housed in the lib-rary. The theoretical rationale for this endeavor isthat the library, as the primary research-supportingfacility, should play an important educational rolein the academic community it serves. Furthermore,librarians, as the principal actors in this facility,are the most effective teachers of good bibliographicskills. The practical ramifications of bibliographicinstruction are obvious and therefore less frequentlydisputed than the theoretical: search strategy andrelated bibliographic techniques are more efficientlyacquired through organized instruction than individu-ally by trial and error.

Bibliographic instruction programs are as variedas the libraries which offer them, ranging the fullgamut from ad hoc, personalized tutoring to full year,credit-bearing courses. The materials used in theseprograms are equally diverse, but generally fall intoone of five main categories: library/facilities guide-books, guides to the literature (bibliographies andpathfinders), point of use guides, workbooks, and self-paced manuals and exercises. Regardless of the qua-lity or quantity of printed materials provided, how-ever, such materials merely facilitate instructionand in no case should they supplant the active andvisible participation of a librarian at some point inthe instruction process. Even in cases where contactis minimal, the library user is provided an opportun-

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ity to identify a human resource behind the confusingmorass of printed resources. More significantly, thefundamental concepts of strategy and methodology, andthe basic organization and function of various bib-liographic tools are more effectively communicatedand stressed in oral rather than printed fashion.

Step 1: Warning

Assuming you are convinced of the value of asystematic approach to bibliographic instruction andare willing to expend the time and energy required tocreate and maintain a program, your first and majorconcern is how to attract students to your service.While some students have at least a vague notion ofthe wealth of library resources, only the most moti-vated or the previously "indoctrinated" will seekyour guidance in learning bibliographic tools. Con-sidering the numerous demands on students' time, andthat most have already "survived" academically with-out such instruction, it is easy to see why weak li-brary skills are perpetuated and even re-inforced.

Most studies on bibliographic instruction empha-size that the effective program does not exist in avacuum, and that no amount of campaigning and bannerwaving about the value of bibliographic know-how willsucceed in reaching and enticing all those who needhelp. Faculty support, especially in schools wherebibliographic instruction is not part of the curric-ulum, is therefore vital to the success of a B Iprogram. All too often, however, faculty prove to bea resistant force. While most recognize the impor-tance of the library to their own research, far fewerare eager to "sacrifice" class time for library in-struction. Therefore, like any good sales-person, wemust be prepared to package our product in the mostconvincing and marketable way possible, and to advo-cate the merits of our role as instructor.

Step 2: Assessment

An assessment of the salient features of yourlibrary environment is a useful preliminary step toformulating the most appropriate B I service foryour community. Specifically, the complexity of yourlibrary system, the extent and depth of bibliographicinstruction programs already in place, and the per-ceived strengths and weaknesses of your Middle East-ern collection should all help determine both yourstrategy for identifying and reaching patrons, andthe focal points of your presentation. As MiddleEastern librarians, our primary concern with regardto B I is to enlighten students concerning the widerange of available materials which facilitate research

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in their field. Yet, if for lack of general B Iprograms at your school these students come to youwith virtually no bibliographic skills save what theyhave acquired by trial and error, your specializedinstruction may be wasted unless you incorporate suchbasic concepts as search strategy and functions ofthe broad bibliographic categories into your presen-tation. Furthermore, the area librarians' territoryis vast, spanning several subjects, languages, andcenturies. Instruction can range the entire spectrumfrom the lowest common denominator to the most spec-ialized, depending on our patrons' needs.

Your role and physical location in the libraryare additional factors to consider during this asses-ment period. Consider, for example, the Middle East-ern Department at Harvard. The Department is housedon the top floor of Widener Library, the University'smajor research library for the social studies andthe humanities. The Department's primary functionsare to acquire and process Middle Eastern vernacularlanguage materials, to acquire Middle Eastern imprintsin other languages, and to recommend non-Middle East-ern imprints for purchase. Our vernacular scriptcatalogues are located just outside the Departmentand function as a union catalogue of Middle Easternlanguage titles for the University. While generalreference service is available in Widener and in Har-vard's undergraduate libraries Lament and Hilles, theDepartment is the University's primary source forlibrary staff knowledgeable about the Middle East.New graduate students, who are oriented to the Depart-ment when they commence their studies at Harvard,generally come directly to the Department when theyneed assistance. Undergraduates, both in Middle East-ern studies and in other fields, as well as non-Mid-dle Eastern graduate students, tend to try the generalreference departments in either Widener or the under-graduate libraries first, and are referred to the De-partment when their questions require specialized at-tention. From this assessment of the current patternof reference service at Widener, an important non-usergroup was identified: the general reference staffs atWidener, Lament and Hilles. Their role as intermedi-aries between some patrons and the Department is afactor the Department must consider in developing awide-reaching program. While it is neither practicalnor desirable to give specialized B I to those withonly a passing research interest in the Middle East,it is important to ensure that such patrons are com-petently served in their requests for assistance.Therefore, the Library's general reference personnel(who must be relied on for this service) are a targetfor a certain type of bibliographic instruction.Such skills as romanization and finding Arabic authors

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in Western language catalogues could prove very use-ful for reference librarians.

Faculty who are convinced of the value of goodbibliographic skills can also help in reaching stu-dents you are personally unable to instruct. A fewprofessors at Harvard give problem-solving assign-ments which require the use of bibliographic toolsand reference works. If more faculty members couldbe encouraged to develop such assignments and to urgetheir students to use library services, the level of"non-use" would decrease significantly. In short,while you cannot possibly provide specialized instruc-tion to everyone having a present or potential MiddleEastern research interest, an analysis of your li-brary environment and of the patterns of library useor non-use can help you to identify your targets andto develop the best tactics for reaching them. Fur-thermore, by analyzing the quality and extent of gen-eral bibliographic instruction already provided toyour clientele, you can better determine the focusof your own presentation.

Designing a Program

While instructional programs must be tailored tothe needs of a particular situation, and there arepros and cons to every mode of instruction, two rulesof thumb for designing any program are to enumeratelearning objectives from the outset and to seek out-side guidance in planning and preparing materials fordistribution. Enumerating learning objectives forcesyou to focus on the learning process first, ratherthan on teaching methods. After recording the skillsand concepts that you want the students to learn, youcan proceed to develop a presentation which will pro-mote those learning objectives. This method ensuresa logical, systematic approach to program design, andcreates a vehicle for future evaluation. The Policyand Planning Committee of ACRL's Bibliographic In-struction Section has recently published a handbookwhich includes a model statement of objectives forinstructional programs aimed at undergraduates. Theseobjectives are adaptable to the needs of any level ofstudent, however, and are especially useful to thesubject/area librarian in identifying general skillswhich might have to be incorporated in a specializedpresentation, depending on the backgrounds of thestudents or the availability of such instruction else-where in the library.

Once you have assessed your community's needs,identified your target groups, ennumerated learningobjectives, solicited the support of at least one

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faculty member, and decided upon your strategy forreaching the various target groups, you are ready toprepare written guides and possibly exercises for dis-tribution. The most efficient way to proceed is tofirst examine what has already been done by your MELAcolleagues. While you may choose to refine these ma-terials to satisfy the needs of your students or toharmonize with the format of your presentation, work-ing from what is available saves time and energy.MELA Notes provides a convenient vehicle for commun-icating news in the realm of bibliographic instruc-tion. Furthermore, the Library Orientation-Instruc-tion Exchange (LOEX), based at Eastern Michigan Univ-sity, provides librarians in this country with a ve-hicle for exchanging B I materials aimed at all levelsof library users. Therefore, I would like to make thefollowing recommendations:

1. That MELA survey its members to gather in-formation on the nature and extent of theB I they provide and the materials theyhave prepared;

2. That we contribute articles to MELA Notesinforming one another of efforts to imple-ment B I in our schools;

3. That we contribute to LOEX materials wehave prepared so that each of us as wellas non-Middle Eastern specialists canbenefit from our work.

The survey could appear as a directory in anissue of MELA Notes and would enable us to contacteach other for advice or guidance in assessing userneeds and developing programs responsive to them.The directory would include information about thoseof us who have or intend to contribute to LOEX sothat we could request copies from that organizationrather than burden one another with the expensive andtime-consuming job of distribution. Lastly, thearticles could range from the purely descriptive toactual features on specific topics or skills. Sucharticles could provide valuable insight to those ofus struggling to develop good programs, or could beadapted and reproduced for the use of our patrons.

In conclusion, bibliographic instruction meansmuch more than orienting a person to the physical set-ting of a library or disseminating reams of printedmaterials. It entails a great deal of preparationand sensitivity to the users' needs and a careful as-sesment of the information resources in your library.Such considerable demands on our time are justifiableif we accept the concept that our users have the rightto "bibliographic knowhow." If so, we must accept

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the responsibility of imparting it.

Useful Sources Consulted:

American Library Association. Association of Collegeand Research Libraries. Bibliographic InstructionSection. Policy and Planning Committee. Biblio-graphic Instruction Handbook. Chicago: ACRL, 1979.This is available from the Association of Collegeand Research Libraries, 50 East Huron, Chicago,Illinois 60611. The price is $5.00 for ACRL mem-bers and $6.00 for others.

Conference on Library Orientation, 3rd, Eastern Michi-gan University, 1973. Planning and Developing aLibrary Orientation Program. Proceedings of theThird Annual Conference on Library Orientation forAcademic Libraries, Eastern Michigan University,May 3-4, 1973, edited by Mary Bolner. Ann Arbor:Pierian Press, 1975.

Conference on Library Orientation, 6th, Eastern Michi-gan University, 1976. Library Instruction in theSeventies: State of the Art. Papers presented atthe 6th Annual Conference on Library Orientation,edited by Hannelore B. Rader. Ann Arbor, PierianPress, 1977.

Conference on the Evaluation of Library Instruction,University of Denver, 1973. Evaluating LibraryUse Instruction. Papers, edited by Richard J.Beeler. Ann Arbor: Pierian Press, 1975.

"Guidelines for Bibliographic Instruction in AcademicLibraries," College and Research Library News, no.4, April 1977, p. 92.

Hills, P.J. "Library Instruction and the Developmentof the Individual," Journal of Librarianship, VI,October 1974, pp. 255-263.

LOEX News; This is a newsletter published by ProjectLOEX (Library Orientation-Instruction Exchange).For information, or to contribute materials, writeProject LOEX, Center of Educational Resources,Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan,48197.

Lubans, John Jr., ed. Educating the Library User.New York: Bowker, 1974.

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Nielson, Erland K. "On the Teaching of SubjectBibliography in History," Libri, XXIV, 1974,pp. 171-208.

"Towards Guidelines for Bibliographic Instructionin Academic Libraries," College and ResearchLibrary News, no. 5, May 1975, pp. 137-9, 169-71,

Francine H. McNulty

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Toward B i b l i o g r a p h i c C o n t r o l Of TheA r a b i c L i t e r a t u r e Of The New W o r l d

From 1892, when the first Arabic periodical(Kawkab AmlrikS) was printed and circulated in theNew World, until the present time, some 389 or morenewspapers and journals plus hundreds of monographshave appeared to form the body of Arab immigrant,or Mahjar, writings.

This paper reflects my work in progress on thebibliographic control of these writings. I havedivided my comments into three parts. First, I willlook into the historical background of Arab-Americansin order to illustrate the literary themes and trendswhich dominate their works. Next, I will report onthe progress of my work and mention some of the out-standing sources which have been invaluable to thisresearch. Finally, I will discuss some of the prob-lems which have developed in this project.

Historical Background

During the early part of the 19th century andpossible even earlier, a small number of Arabic-speak-ing people found their way to the New World. Themost significant immigration took place during the1860's when Greater Syria (and especially the area ofLebanon) was undergoing great political and religiousturmoil. Although religious persecution obviouslycaused many Arab-Christians to abandon their homelandsin search of religious freedom, there were other rea-sons for this later, massive emigration.

As early as the 1820's, Lebanon was exposed toWestern influences due to the educational activitiesof the Jesuits and various Episcopalian missions.By 1860 there were over thirty schools for LebaneseChristians. It was from amongst the graduates ofthese schools that reformers and revolutionariesemerged seeking the destruction of their Ottoman mas-ters. Many among them also left their homeland forEgypt and the Western world, seeking freedom fromoppression.

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During the 19th century, Lebanon's economy waspredominantly agricultural. However famine, landerosion, a harsh feudal system and heavy taxationall contributed to massive migrations to the citiesof destitute farmers in search of work. In the cities,too, economic conditions were deteriorating becauseof the dumping of cheap, colorful, European-producedmaterial into the marketplace, undercutting the lo-cally produced fabrics and contributing, consequent-ly, to unemployment in the textile industry. Thus,unable to find work, many farmers emmigrated to theNew World in search of economic opportunities.

Those who found their way to the American con-tinent represented a microcosm of their homeland andthus formed as diversified a community as the onethey had left behind. The Mahjar writings reflectthis variety of background, education, and talent.One finds political treatises and religious essaysand poems, along with the fancies of romantic poets— all written in both the dialects and literarystyles brought from home.

The Work in Progress

After a preliminary search, I found that no oneto date had attempted to compile a comprehensivebibliography of the wealth of Mahjar literature. Idecided to attempt such a task, and Harvard CollegeLibrary supported my endeavor with a grant to covertravel expenses to New York and Washington, and tooffset clerical costs.

After a year of working on this project (as yetincomplete) I have been successful in amassing over5,000 cards containing bio-bibliographical informa-tion about the authors and brief annotations on eachlisted title, whether monograph, essay, or article.In order to collect this information I examined allthe critical and analytical works written about Mah-jar authors available to me. Towards this end.George Saydah's book, Adabuna wa-'Udaba'unS fl al-Mahjir al-Amrlklyah, and Ya'qub al-'0d5t's al-Na^iqunbi-al-dad fl Amrlkl" al-Janubiyah, have been invaluableresources. Both works are encyclopedic in scope,each author trying to be comprehensive in his infor-mation.

For the periodical listings, in addition to thetitles mentioned above, I should note that Tarrazl'sTarlkh al-$ihafah al-'Arabiyah is the most useful andaccurate guide for tracing Arabic periodicals inAmerica up to the year 1929. For the subsequent eraQandiljI's book, al-'Arab fi al-Mahjar al-Amrlkl, isuseful in updating the periodical list despite thefact that both sources (the latter more than the for-mer, often lack detailed, accurate information.

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As a second step, I checked every edition ofseveral important Arab and Mahjar periodicals likeal-Adib, al-Mashriq, al-Abhath, al-Funun, al-Samlr,al-Sa'ifr al-Mumtaz, al-'Usbah, and many other jour-nals, adding new titles to the list or revising myprevious notes with the more accurate information ob-tained from these sources.

At this point I should point out that al-Adibof Beirut is indeed an outstanding literary recordof Mahjar writings. In almost every issue since1942 one can find reviews, critical essays and ad-vertisements about immigrant writings and authors.After compiling all my notes, I found that my mater-ial was beyond the boundaries of my original project,my resources, or the time available to complete it.Consequently I limited the scope to literary workswritten primarily in Arabic, and to critical essays,commentaries or reviews about Mahjar literature,whether in Arabic, Russian or any major Westernlanguage. The choice of literature, and not science,for example, was based on the fact that literaturerepresents the bulk of writings by these immigrantsand best provides a view of their lives and culture.

Mahjar literary works reflect the personal andcommunal life of the Arabs in the New World. Thisliterature also illustrates the relations betweenthe Arab immigrants and their American neighbors aswell as their continued exchange of ideas with theircounterparts from their native land.

Problems

Since the subject matter of the bibliography isAdab al-Mahjar it is necessary to find a clear under-standing of this term so that inclusion or exclusionis accordingly justifiable.

Adab al-Mahjar means the literature of the im-migrants, and despite the fact that the geographicallocation is not specified, the generally acceptedinterpretation is immigrants to the New World. Thus,it would seem straight forward for any bibliographerto include all the literature produced by Arabs whohave migrated to the New World.

However, the literary critics and historians ofthis period have neither strictly defined nor appliedconsistently the term Adab al-Mahjar. We have two ex-amples in the work Adab al-Mahjar by 'Tsa al-Na'url,a Jordanian specialist in this field, and Adabuna...by George Saydah, who himself was an immigrant poet.Dr. al-Na'url defines Adab al-Mahjar as the liter-ature (which he limits to poetry) of those Arabs whoemigrated to the New World around the last quarterof the 19th and the early part of the 20th centuries.

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and whose style was changed by their new environment.His definition is incomplete, for it ignores otherliterary genres, such as fiction, and does not in-clude other periods in history when there have beenimportant contributions by immigrant writers. Whatthen should we call the immigrant literature pro-duced in the 1950's, 1960's,and the 1970's? Further-more, from a bibliographer's point of view, it is dif-ficult to trace and evaluate the styles and themes ofgreat numbers of poets, etc., to find out whether ornot their styles have significantly changed by theirnew environments, as Dr. al-Na'uri requires by hisdefinition. In addition, al-Na'url was inconsistentin his inclusions and exclusions of Mahjar writers.He included the Lebanese poet Riyad Ma'luf who onlyspent a few years in the New World, and he excludedAhmad Zaki Abu Shadi who lived the last nine years ofhis life in the New World and wrote extensively dur-ing that time.

George Saydah, on the other hand, has includeda wide circle of immigrant writers in his work, Adab-una, and by doing so comes close to the simple anddirect linguistic meaning of Adab al-mahjar, whichin turn is more useful to bibliographers. However,Mr. Saydah went too far by including diplomats likeAmln Arsalan and those whom he called "by-passers,"who paid but brief visits to the Americas and onlycircumstantially produced some of their writings whilehere.One such example would be Yusuf Huwayyik.

Thus, the problem of a comprehensive definitionstill exists and bibliographers have no choice butto accomodate both approaches in order to be compre-hensive, thus leaving the quarrel to the critics toresolve.

There were technical problems as well to be re-solved. For instance, not all the Arabic books orarticles that were published in America were writtenby actual Mahjar writers. Some authors of books pub-lished here never saw these shores. The eliminationof a few was easy, but there are numerous otherauthors who have been difficult to trace. Discretionwas also necessary in the choice of periodicals, somebeing too obscure for consideration. Finally, thereremains one important technical problem which needsimmediate attention -- the proper preservation ofthis body of literature from deterioration. WhileHarvard College and the Library of Congress have ta-ken certain steps to preserve some of this importantheritage by the use of microfilm, there remain severalimportant newspapers and journals, like al-Sharq,found in Brazil, which are not being preserved andwill be lost forever through negligence.

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In conclusion, three points should be stressed:first, the bibliographic control of the major Mahjarwritings is possible with the commitment of suffici-ent funds. Second, there is an urgency to completethe task in the near future before these valuableprimary sources are lost for ever. Finally, morescientific studies are required to uncover the depthof immigrant writings; certain periodicals, likeal-Jami'ah al-Suryanlyah, have not been properlyutilized, and there are works in translation by Mali-jar writers that have not been researched.

Fawzi Abdulrazak

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The Role Of The Library School In The CareerOf The Middle Eastern Librar ian

The role of the library school in the career ofthe Middle Eastern librarian has been, traditionally,to provide a sequence of courses whose completion bythe student results in the awarding of the master oflibrary science. I will not limit this discussion tothe time spent in the M.L.S. program, however. Atten-tion must also be given to the entire career life ofthe individual. There is a duty or responsibilityof the library school not only to provide basic edu-cation, but also to provide for and participate inthe education of the librarian throughout that per-son's career. Therefore, this paper will address thesubject as encompassing the library school's rolefrom the beginning of coursework taken in library sci-ence on through the pursuit of lifelong learning bythe Middle Eastern librarian. Most of my remarkswill concern only library schools in the UnitedStates.

Library schools have always strived to provide awell balanced curriculum which prepares the studentfor work in any type of library. They have also re-alized that special types of libraries and librarywork require knowledge beyond that which can be ob-tained in a general curriculum. To meet this need,curricula have been expanded to include specializedstudy. This may be accomplished with elective tracksor joint-degree programs. Both have relevance forthe student wishing to become a Middle Eastern libra-rian. Let us examine these alternatives more closely,and consider the current and possible roles of thelibrary school.

Most library schools in the United States offera standard core of courses and a choice of electivetracks. These tracks often focus on a type of librarysuch as school, public, academic, and special, and oninformation science. Generally, they include specialcourses on administration according to library typeand on reading materials for the user of that libra-ry, and concentrations in areas such as cataloging,automation, reference, or media, according to the

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preparation desired. On the other hand, the studentmay, in some library schools, elect comprehensivecourse-work emphasizing activities such as referenceor cataloging, rather than a type of library.

A third type of elective track, relevant to theMiddle Eastern librarian, is that in which the stu-dent takes a series of courses pertaining to a cer-tain subject. According to Antje Lemke, in a recentpaper on alternative specialties, library schoolsoffer subject specialities in medicine (36 schools),law (31 schools), archives (23 schools), rare books(22 schools), music (11 schools), art (10 schools),publishing, ethnic studies, drug information, geron-tology, disadvantaged/handicapped, prison services,urban programs, geography/maps, performing arts,theology, and Latin American, South East Asian andAfrican area bibliography.-'- There appear to be nospecialized tracks for Middle East librarianship.

The library science student aspiring to be aMiddle Eastern librarian probably elects a track em-phasizing academic libraries, or takes a concentra-tion in cataloging or reference. Following thetight course requirements of the standard core cur-riculum and the elective track, the student usuallydoes not have sufficient free elective hours avail-able to be able to take courses outside the libraryschool that might be relevant to future employment.These courses would include Middle Eastern languages,history, politics, geography, literature, economics,and religion, to name just a few avenues of study.

Unless the future Middle Eastern librarian comesto the library school with a master's degree alreadyobtained in Middle Eastern studies, it is likely thatthis individual graduates with a feeling of being un-prepared. At the least, there may be a certain re-gret that the curriculum did not allow for the inclu-sion of other courses that would have been beneficial.To compensate, some may go on to earn a second M.A.degree in a Middle Eastern subject.

What is the role of the library school? I dobelieve that the library school has the responsibilityto determine whether there is a need for a specializedarea studies track. More specifically, the libraryschool should look for needs for area specializationcovering all major regions of the world, and the Mid-dle East should be among those regions investigated.

If a need for a subject speciality focusing onMiddle Eastern librarianship is found, the libraryschool should investigate such a speciality, just asit does for law, medicine, and other subjects. Thereshould be at least some library schools in the UnitedStates which will train the student for work withMiddle Eastern materials collection.

The program does not have to be elaborate, butit should be available. Using the courses in Latin

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American Library Studies at the Graduate School ofLibrary Science at the University of Texas at Austinas a guide, there might be courses such as MiddleEastern Archives, Middle Eastern Publishing and BookTrade, Library Development in the Middle East, Semi-nar in Middle Eastern Library Studies, Middle EasternMaterials: Humanities & Social Sciences. This is alla possibility. It could become a reality.

One question arises. Suppose the library schoolfeels that the student still needs coursework con-centrating on a type of library or library activity?An immediate problem is how to include so many dif-ferent sources in a regular master's degree program.

In the usual master's degree curriculum in li-brary science, the student completes approximately 36semester hours of coursework (more for the quartersystem). If 12 or more of these hours are taken inthe core curriculum, only 24 are left for electives,approximately eight courses. If one subtracts theadvanced courses in cataloging and reference, a courseon administration of a type of library, and a courseon automation, there is very little time left for awell-rounded Middle Eastern librarianship speciali-zation.

One solution may be at hand. According to KayMurray, writing in the Spring 1978 issue of Journalof Education for Librarianship, the two-year master'sprogram may become more of an option in library edu-cation in the next five years.2 Ms. Murray saysthat "the rationale for extending the length of themaster's program focuses on two factors: the expandedbasic knowledge now required for librarianship, andthe increasing pressure to achieve some competence ina specialized area while in library school." Shefurther states that it is generally agreed by propo-nents of the lengthened master's program that bothfactors cannot be accomplished in one year. It shouldbe noted that all Canadian library schools have two-year programs.

Of interest to the future Middle Eastern libra-rian is the second factor given, "increased pressureto achieve some competence in a specialized area."This competence does not come with three electives.Therefore, it would appear that a viable program inMiddle Eastern librarianship may have to extend overa two-year period. One would expect that the MiddleEastern librarian graduating from such a program wouldfeel far more prepared to assume duties as a special-ist than one going through a regular curriculum.

Now let us turn to a second method that libraryschools are using to expand the curriculum. This isthe joint-degree program. In a joint-degree program,the library school offers a master's degree in cooper-ation with a department outside the library school,

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which also offers a master's degree. The studentfollowing this program graduates with two master'sdegrees, perhaps taking some courses which counttowards each degree simultaneously.

The 1975 Delphi Study on the "Future of LibraryEducation," revealed support for joint-degree pro-grams with other fields.3 Sixty-nine percent of therespondents to a survey conducted during the studyconsidered such degrees desirable, and, in fact, theyseem to be proliferating.

At present, in American library schools, thereare joint-degree programs in such fields as history,education, psychology, anthropology, communications,geography, geology, medicine, art, music, mathematics,law, business, American studies, and Latin Americanstudies, as well as a joint-degree program in NearEastern studies. This is offered by the School ofLibrary and Information Studies at the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley, in cooperation with the De-partment of Near Eastern Studies. Upon graduationfrom this program, the student receives the M.L.S.and M.A. degrees.

In joint-degree programs, the number of credithours of library science ranges from 15 to 30 semes-ter hours or 27 to 45 quarter hours, with no concen-sus on required length of program. In the case ofthe University of California program, which takes twoyears, 33 quarter hours of library science and 32quarter hours of Near Eastern studies, for a total of65 hours, is the normal requirement.

Joint-degree programs in Middle Eastern studiescould overcome the obligation to obtain a second mas-ter's degree either before or after library scienceeducation, often necessary to qualify for specializedpositions.

Again, it should be the role of the libraryschool to determine the need for such programs, andwhere a need is found, to meet this need. Consider-ing the trend toward joint-degree programs, with en-couragement, there may be more of these in the futurein the area of Middle Eastern studies.

In this paper, I will not describe the varioustypes of post-master's programs, such as those lead-ing to sixth year certification, or advanced master'sand doctoral degrees. One would expect that, in thesestudies, the student would concentrate on a very spe-cialized area of Middle Eastern librarianship. Tomy knowledge, there are no programs at these levelsspecifically for the Middle Eastern librarian, in theUnited States. Perhaps the need is there. It wouldseem to be the role of the library school to providesuch programs if a need is determined.

The final area in which the library school has arole in the career of the Middle Eastern librarian isthat of continuing education. Much has been written

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and said about continuing education, especially duringthe last ten years. Julie Virgo, Patricia Dunkel,and Pauline Angione aptly sum up the reasons behindthe concept. They say, "Professional education, ifit is successful, does not mark the termination of theeducational process; indeed, it signifies the begin-ning of a life of continuous learning and renewal.'"'

The policy statement recently put forth by theCouncil on Quality Continuing Library Education:Information-Library-Media Programs lists the goalsand objectives of continuing education as follows:"A lifetime of learning is an obligation of all thosewho work in or with library-information-media ser-vices in carrying out their major assigned role insociety to identify, select, organize, retrieve, dis-seminate, and make totally accessible to all, the re-cord of human thought. The goals of continuing lib-rary-information-media education are to: Improve lib-rary, information, and media services to all; Main-tain the lifelong competence of practitioners. Regu-lar participation in continuing education activitiesenables the practitioners to: Refresh basic educationby mastering new concepts in a constantly changingenvironment; Keep up with the new knowledge and skillsrequired to perform their roles responsibly; Preparefor specialization in a new area."5

Recognizing its role in the lifelong educationof the librarian, the library school is now focusingmore and more on continuing education. In fact, JoAnn Bell, in a 1977 survey of accredited libraryschools in the United States, found that seventy-ninepercent had some type of continuing education activ-ity or recognition.° These fell into nine broad ca-tegories:

1. scheduling courses at convenient hoursor through extension:

2. developing new courses which reflect cur-rent and emerging concepts;

3. cooperating with other agencies and in-stitutions;

4. maintaining liaison with groups that areworking on continuing education;

5. developing and offering workshops andinstitutions on content not covered inthe master's program;

6. offering sixth-year certificate anddoctoral programs;

7. admitting practicing librarians toselect graduate courses;

8. providing training on continuing educa-tion during the master's program;

9. conducting research on continuing educa-needs, problems, etc.

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Probably of most interest to the Middle Eastern lib-rarian is the activity of developing and offeringworkshops and institutions on content not covered inthe master's degree curriculum. The following exam-ples of workshops, institutes, and one-day programsgiven by library schools in 1979 illustrate their na-ture: "Time and Stress Management for Libraries"(Case Western Reserve University), "OCLC for the Un-initiated" (College of St. Catherine), "Anglo-Ameri-can Cataloging Rules II" (University of Rhode Island,Drexel University, and others), "Conservation Man-agement in Libraries and Archives" (Simmons College),"Resources in the Health Sciences" (Western MichiganUniversity), "An Introduction to the Use of LegalMaterials in Libraries" (University of Iowa), "On LineSearching of Data Bases" (Drexel University, WesternMichigan University and others), "Bilingual Librari-anship and Information Science" (McGill University),"Effective Communication" amd "Effective Interview-ing" (Columbia University).

These are just a few of the many listed in 1979issues of Continuing Education Communicator, publish-ed by CLENE (Continuing Library Education Network andExchange). However, I have found no continuing edu-cation offered by a library school for the MiddleEastern Librarian.

It does not seem too unrealistic to expect thelibrary school to offer such activities for the Mid-dle Eastern librarian. Special courses and workshopson cataloging and using Middle Eastern materials, onspecial problems of the Middle Eastern librarian, andon the possibilities of automation would surely bebeneficial. The Middle East Librarians' Associationhas already shown the way with its own invaluableworkshops, and library schools can do no better thanto follow suit.

In summary, the role of the library school inthe career of the Middle Eastern Librarian is, I be-lieve, not only to provide the standard curriculum,along with a choice of tracks based on various subjectareas. It also includes the provision of appropriateprograms geared to fit the requirements of the MiddleEastern librarian. These may be elective tracks with-in the M.L.S. degree or joint-degree programs leadingto two master's degrees.

The role of the library school further includesthe provision of continuing education, based on theneeds of the practicing Middle Eastern librarian.In today's world of emphasis on specialized education,the library school must recognize these roles toremain the viable institution which we have all cometo depend upon.

Veronica S. Pantelidis

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1. Antje Bultman Lemke, "Alternative Specialities inLibrary Education," paper presented at the meetingof the Association of American Library Schools,Chicago, 1978. (Published in Journal of Educationfor Librarianship 18 (Spring, 1978): pp. 285-294.

2. Kay Murray, "The Structure of M.L.S. Programs inAmerican Library Schools," Journal of Educationfor Librarianship 18 (Spring, 1978) : p. 279.

3. K.E. Vance, R.M. Magrill, and T.W. Downen, "Futureof Library Education: 1975 Delphi Study,"Journal ofEducation for Librarianship 18 (Summer, 1977):

4. Julie Virgo, Patricia McConaghey Dunkel, and Pau-line V. Angione, Continuing Library EducationNeeds Assessment and Model Programs, Washington:The Continuing Library Education Network andExchange, n.d., p. 1

5. The Council on Quality Continuing Library Educa-tion: Information--Library--Media Programs, "Guide-lines for Quality Continuing Library--Information—Media Profession," August, 1979, p. 4 (Mimeo)

6. Jo Ann Bell,"The Role of the Library School in Pro-viding Continuing Education for the Profession,"Journal of Education for Librarianship 19 (Winter,1979) : pp. 248-259.

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N o n - P r i n t Resources For S tudyOf The M i d d l e E a s t

The term "non-print research tools" covers anincredibly large body of work in the areas of stillphotography, film, videotape, slides and sound re-cordings. For the purposes of this discussion, paint-ing, sculpture, and realia are not included thoughmuch of the information on organization and preser-vation for research purposes is just as valid andnecessary for those forms of non-print material.

Much primary research material which formerlyappeared in print in the last century has appearedwith increasing frequency in recent decades in non-print form. Radio broadcasts of speeches and newsevents, filmed or videotaped interviews with worldfigures, and photographs of specific events are bynature rich sources, full of information because theyinclude not only the text and inflection of the speechor event, but also allow the viewer to examine frameby frame, second by second, or under a magnifyingglass events which have shaped our way of life andthought.

One of the major drawbacks to Middle East andNorth African studies in the United States is thelanguage barrier. Cultural gaps and language barriersmay be by-passed or greatly reduced in certain areasof study by the skillful use of non-print teachingand research materials. It is no longer necessary tojustify the need for non-print material in any fieldof study, especially teaching and research in areastudy programs. But even as non-print meterials areone of the richest sources of information, they are

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at the same time one of the most unused and abusedform of teaching and research material.

The drawbacks to non-print resources are verysimilar to those of print: the medium itself deteri-orates after a period of time, and oddly enough itis an underused resource because there is too muchof it for the individual teacher or researcher tosift through. There is also a prejudicial impressionthat there is little of "true research value" in thenon-print field. It is as if an English language andliterature instructor had the entire collection ofthe Library of Congress from which to choose but usedonly a copy of McGuffy's Reader for classroom pur-poses because it was already available in the school'sbook storage area. The overwhelming volume of film,videotape, slide, still photograph and sound record-ings which are available but yet lack easy access or"mediagraphic" control has deterred the average teach-er and researcher from even beginning its use. Organ-ization and preservation of the most valuable non-print resources in Middle East and North Africanstudies should be one of the major goals of MiddleEast librarians. Steps are already underway to bringsome of this material, mainly films, under mediagra-phic" control, which will in turn lead to further filmdistribution and use.

This is a period of transition as the importanceof non-print media items for basic primary researchand teaching is beginning to be recognized. This isparticularly true of films. The location and preser-vation of early films, photos, slides and recordingsdealing with the Middle East and North Africa is es-sential. But the desire and need to organize andsave films is in great part a carry-over of the hugegrowth in the field of general film studies and thecurrent thoughtful examination of early silent andtalking feature films to determine the effects theyhave had in forming our images of women, blacks,Native Americans, other countries, the American wayof life and our expectations of the future. The typeof work done in the general film field by the Ameri-can film industry decade by decade, or the many largepopular film and video guides, such as Leslie Halli-well's The Filmgoer's Companion and Tim Brooks' andEarle Marsh's The Complete Directory to Prime TimeNetwork TV Shows, 1946-Present, to name a few, makesus realize how much a part of our lives is tied upwith non-print influences. In browsing through oneof the guides available to prime time television, itis almost frightening to realize how many of theseprograms, many broadcast years ago for only one sea-son, are readily remembered and easily discussed bypeople of the corresponding age group.

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In the field of Middle East and North Africanstudies, one might think that non-print media expo-sure is minimal and has little effect on our under-standing or educational system. In fact, the reverseis closer to the truth. The so-called "average Amer-ican" has an unrealistic view of the Middle Eastand North Africa.1 When a group of over 200 tele-vision viewers were asked what percentage of the Mid-dle Eastern peoples were nomadic, 23% of the groupanswered that 51-100% were nomadic, as opposed tocurrent scholarly estimates of between 7-9%. Whenthis group was asked how many countries they thoughtwere in the Middle East and North Africa, 11% answer-ed between only 1-5, 44% answered between 6-10countries. This reflects the vague and indefinitedefinition of the area and the confusion many peoplehave in identifying names of specific countries withtheir locations. In another question, 24% of thoseanswering thought Arabs, Persians and Turks were allof the same ethnic and racial origin, that they wereall Semitic peoples.

These answers should not be at all startling inthemselves. They show a basic, vague understandingof the Middle East which is very common until onelooks more closely at the sample. These people were60% male, 40% female, were predominantly white withan income of over $20,000 per year and on the averagewith over two years of college-level education.Almost half of the group was between the ages of 25and 39. One would assume that these are above"average" in educational level and access to inform-ation, and yet their information is not accurate.These viewers also had very definite ideas about howthe "average Arab" in turn viewed them. When askedhow the ordinary citizen of the Arab world feelstowards the U.S., not counting feeling due to theArab-Israeli conflicts or the Palestinians, 31% an-swered positively, that those feelings would besomewhat friendly (18%), very friendly (8%) or ex-tremely friendly (5%). On the other side, 69% feltthe ordinary citizen of the Arab world feels indif-ferent (39%) or hostile (30%) towards the U.S. Thissurvey was taken after the Camp David accords and be-fore the taking of the U.S. hostages in Iran. Wheredo these ideas come from? What is the basis forimages of the Middle East expressed by individualswho don't even know if over half of a large region ofthe world is nomadic or not?

Are these vague images a result of newspaper andtelevision news reporting? It seems unlikely as theseforms of news coverage highlight current events andcrisis reporting; wars, hostages, assassinations andriots are shown more often than nomads and camels.

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News coverage seldom imparts basic cultural informa-tion. As a few questions from the survey show, theweakness of information is basic, not involved withcurrent events. Sixty % of those responding saidthey would like to see an in-depth television docu-mentary dealing with topics such as the U.S.-Arabworld relations or the Palestinians. Of the 40% whodid not wish to see such documentary coverage, 24%replied that it was not needed, but a large 28% rep-lied it would not be useful because it could not bepresented in a fair, unbiased way. When asked whatthey felt was the biggest obstacle in the way of im-proving U.S.-Arab world political relations, theanswers by percentage were: oil (50%), ties to Israel(20%), cultural preconceptions (11%), U.S. non-recog-nition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (11%),or the media (8%). From this information, then, itmight appear as if the vague or distorted inages ofthe Middle East and North Africa concerning basiclife styles, geography, etc. has little to do withnewspaper or television news coverage. Instead itis a combination of poor text book material through-out elementary and high school education and inade-quate mention of the Middle East and North Africa atthe university level, except in specialized MiddleEast courses devoted solely to the history and poli-tics of the area.

Consistent fictionalized images can be easilyfound in popular television, novels and films, fromthe evil, turbanned, magic-carpet riding villain inthe Electric Company's "Letterman" segment for child-ren to the Bel-Airabs skits on Saturday Night Live.Crazed terrorists and kidnapped Arab princes for aperiod of time rivalled the unstable, violent re-turning Vietnam veteran as the popular stereotypeimage for many prime-time series. The image of theMiddle East and North Africa exhibited, in part, byover 200 people in the above survey fits more closelythe image of the Arab in Starsky and Hutch or TheOdessa File than it does theimagespresented innewspapers, television or radio news coverage, thoughit can easily be argued that these forms of media arenot without fault.

Theoretically, this image should be combatted inthe area of documentary and instructional film deal-ing with the Middle East and North Africa, but if welook more closely that is also an erroneous assump-tion. Documentary and instructional films, often ofextremely high quality and good intentions, unintent-ionally help to foster stereotype images in manycases. Often not so much in what is said as in whatsubjects were considered worthy of discussion andwhat volume is available on specific topics. Current

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attempts to locate and categorize films and video-tapes dealing with the Middle East and North Africa 2have established a group of over 2300 films and tapesdealing with the area and Israel from 1903 to thepresent, in terms of dates of production. These arethe films which were shown on television specials, inclassrooms, in clubs and fund-raising groups and atfilm festivals in colleges and universities. Theseare the films which supposedly have formed our non-print image of the Middle East and North Africa inthe non-fiction category.

What trends and categories arise as these 2300films are examined? Of 179 films dealing with Egyptidentified by this work, the following categoriesemerge: ancient Egypt (62 films), travelogues andgeneral subject (57 films), the dependence on theNile (33 films), urban life (16 films) and villagelife (11 films). By number there are more filmsdealing with the saving of Abu Simbel than there arefilms dealing with both Nasser and Sadat's role inEgyptian history and political life. There are morefilms available dealing with irrigation by use ofwater wheel and water screw than there are films deal-ing with the economic problems of modern Egypt. Thistype of emphasis on coverage of particular topics un-intentionally helps to reinforce ideas as those ex-pressed in text books which portray Egypt as a oncegreat civilization and now a backward country. DoesEgypt's spectacular past dwarf its present in theminds of film makers? Is this just one country whichis an exception? Not at all. In fact, coverage ofEgypt is one of the best available, excluding Israel.When we look at the 52 films identified dealing withMorocco, 14 deal exclusively with nomad life and themajority of others in the travelogue and general sub-ject category cover nomadic life styles very heavily.Of 53 films on Afghanistan, 16 deal specifically withnomadism while many general topic films cover nomadlife, weddings, festivals, etc. Films on the Arabianpeninsula countries tend to look at oil, films onTurkey tend to focus on Turkey's role in NATO, filmson Iran tend to focus on rug making. It is not in-accurate to say that rug making is a very interestingpart of Iranian culture, but is it the main part?And if we take into consideration the number of filmsreadily available for classroom or research use fromnational distributors, we find the percentage offilms on nomadism and rug making much higher in re-lation to the films available on intellectual history.,politics and government or economics. Films on othersubjects, such as Nasser and Sadat's effect on Egypt-ian life were not found in readily available sourcesbut in single copies held in a videotape archive.

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These resources, then, are now in a position wherethey can be used only by visiting scholars, whilereadily available films on ancient ruins and nomadlife coupled with poor text book images form the"average" American's vague, amorphous image of thecurrent Middle East.

Two texts dealing with the image of the MiddleEast, The Image of the Middle East in SecondarySchool Textbooks by William J. Griswold, et al. andAmerican Images of Middle East Peoples: Impact of theHigh School by Michael W. Suleiman, identify manytext books with passages similar to the following,"...there are mainly two ways that an Arab may earnhis living...as a farmer or a nomad." (Alien 242) or"In their desert tent homes, with their caravan, onthe windswept sand wastes, no matter where a truefollower of Allah may be, he spreads his prayer rugfive times a day and faces Mecca to perform his de-votions." (Rogers 158).

Is it any wonder then, that a non-specialistwould assume that the Middle East is a wind-sweptdesert filled with nomadic religious fanatics whenthis image has been presented in so many text booksand re-inforced by fictionalized films and novelsabout the "exotic" East, and then again emphasized bythe choice of material in many documentary and in-structional films which detail the impressive Bakhti-ari migrations but never document contemporary Irani-an urban life? This is again emphasized by librariansand archivists who may allow much earlier materialand current works on the Middle East and North Africaof research value to be lost or destroyed by age orallowed to lapse from distribution. This may be aconsequence of media centers being unable to affordthe price of films available and distributors re-moving the title from the market, thereby making thefilm a lost work. The loss of all films distributedthrough embassies, and therefore not purchased by un-iversities or film centers, is especially obvious incountries such as Afghanistan, Iran and Libya. Filmswhich were once readily available and perhaps free,are now lost when the governments or information poli-cies of these countries changed and the films wereeither destroyed or sent to the home country as un-suitable to represent the new government or new poli-cies. Scholars can no longer afford to disregardthese sources, so underused, unless they wish to losethem forever. Early silent films on nitrate stock,photographs deteriorating from poor storage conditions,videotapes of television programs which are notdeemed "important enough" to save for research pur-poses, these are the problems facing the librarian,archivist and researcher interested in using non-print resources in Middle East and N. African studies.

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A VANISHING RESOURCE OR A GROWING TOOL?

Before teachers or scholars can use non-printmaterials, they must be able to identify those itemswhich fit their needs and find where they are located.There are several major national, institutional andcommercial collections of non-print materials in Mid-dle Eastern and North African studies in the UnitedStates. Some of the largest collections, with themost diverse research materials which are seldom used,are in national collections. A scholarly guide tomedia collections in the Washington, D.C. area isbeing published by the Smithsonian Institution Pressas part of the Scholars Guide to Washington series.This will include much that will be of interest forMiddle East and North African scholars. It is alsoan excellent beginning as Washington has much mater-ial available for use. The National Archives inWashington, D.C. is a particularly large, underusedresource for non-print materials with a collection ofover five million photographs and hundreds of thous-ands of titles in film, video and sound recordings.The Archives, formed in 1934, has non-print collec-tions dating back to the first decade of its growth.Its original purpose was to house those records gene-rated by the 125 U.S. Federal agencies, but thecharge was very broad and any materials generated,collected or used by the agencies, as well as severallarge gift collections may be found there. The lar-gest obstacle in the way of research at the Archivesis the organization system itself. A system gearedtowards preservation, rather than distribution or re-trieval of information, due to the great volume ofmaterials involved, provides difficulties in bothareas.

With a minimum of effort and study beforehand,the researcher can learn to use the system for themost efficient use of time while at the Archives. Thegreat value of the material is that little of it hasbeen used in the past and the vast majority of it isin the public domain. All non-print materials at theArchives are accessed by means of a system based ongroup numbers for each individual donating agency.Every Federal agency now existing, or formerly inexistence, is assigned an individual group number.All materials, regardless of subject matter, gene-rated by that agency will be under that number.So, it is necessary to have a good idea which agencyproduced, or was likely to have produced, the kind ofmaterials for which one is searching. The entire

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system, including the group numbers of all the a-gencies, is explained in a book entitled, The Guideto the National Archives of the United States pub-lished by the Archives in 1974. The 884 page guidealso goes into great depth concerning the varioussubject collections held.

Two collections in the film and videotape areawhich are of particular interest to Middle East andNorth African scholars are the Army Air Forces CombatSubjects/Signal Corps Army Depository File and theUniversal Newsreel Collection. The Signal Corps fordecades maintained multiple film units generating anincredible amount of footage on every subject imagin-able. Though much material is geared towards mili-tary subjects, coverage was extended to includestreet scenes from Palestine to Arab-Israeli War foot-age, from Moroccan prisoners of war to Arabian nomadsbaking bread. The file is divided loosely by subjectsof the Archives' own making. It is necessary to lookthrough the system to see the type of headings usedbefore looking for footage on any single subject.One can always look for footage under the name of thecountry, as opposed to subjects, but as there are nocross-references or subject headings lists and themajority of titles are filed by subject content, thismay not access much material. Flexibility and timeare needed for best results in dealing with theArchives' rich collections.

The Universal Newsreel Collection dates from 1929to 1967, recording the major events and personalitiesof the day. For speeches or footage of particularindividuals, this file is also arranged by name ofwell-known figures, making access to these filmssomewhat better than the Signal Corps' large collec-tion. Unfortunately, much of this collection is onnitrate stock and after a December, 1978 nitrate fire,part of the Universal Newsreel collection was lost.A complete inventory may never be able to outline thetype of material lost forever.

The National Archives also holds over 47,000sound recordings from the turn of the century to thepresent. A great number of these are in Chinese andJapanese, including many captured war recordings, butthese are of less use for Middle East studies.

The still photograph collection at the Archivescontains over five million photographs, artworks, andposters dating from the 17th century to the present.Again, listed by group number, this massive collectionhas incredible amounts of material on the Middle East.It also has the photo archive of the Paris office ofthe New York Times, which means photographs of newsevents and political figures of the last century inthe Middle East have been well documented. Photo-

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graphs documenting everything from tobacco productionin Turkey at the turn of the century to the death ofKing Hussein are covered in these collections. Thephoto collection of the U.S. Information Agency(USIA) is a multi-subject collection worthy of greatstudy, as is the collection of the Smithsonian Insti-tution including all of its study tours of variousparts of the world since the last century. Again,the major difficulty in working with these collectionsis the sporadic indexing of what is held and how toJ.ocate it.

The Library of Congress, in the area of film andvideotape, contains around 86,000 titles; however,only 300 or so are actually on the Middle East andNorth Africa. Whereas films, still photographs andvideotapes may be reproduced from the collection atthe National Archives, the Library of Congress willallow researchers to view films but the Library hasno facilities for reproducing or lending films. TheLibrary's collection also includes many television pro-grams including interviews with Charles Malik, Mena-chem Begin, Anwar Sadat, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, YasirArafat and others. Listening to these interviewsover the years, and the changing attitudes and sub-jects described by the various interviewers and in-terviewees, one develops a healthy respect for hind-sight.

The Library of Congress film collection, con-taining Middle East and North African studies materi-al, has no subject access in the title catalog; sothe researcher must know the title of the film orvideotape needed or make use of filmographies nowbecoming available in this area. The collection holdsfilms going back as far as 1903 dealing with Egyptand the Holy Land shot by A.C. Abadie for the ThomasEdison Company. The staff at the Library of Congressis quite helpful in assisting the serious researcher;but again, this material cannot be borrowed or repro-duced .

The Library of Congress' holdings in the stillphotograph section can be reproduced for a reasonablefee. They hold over 10 million pieces in the Printsand Photographs section, with two collections of par-ticular interest to the Middle East and North Africanstudies scholar.

The first collection is a gift of Abdul-HamitII of Turkey, who donated several large books of pho-tographs of major cities in Turkey which include hun-dreds of views of palaces and buildings in Istanbulcirca 1893. The gem in the L.C. collection for Mid-dle East work, however, is the Matson Archives. Thisis a collection of the photographer Matson, who be-tween 1898 and 1946 took pictures of the Near Eastfor the stereoptic and souvenir market, and as illus-

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trations for groups needing pictures of the HolyLand sights. Over 6000 pieces are held at the Lib-rary of Congress, documenting fifty years of life inthe Middle East, mostly Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan,Egypt and East Africa. These photos are of incredi-ble quality and composition. They are currentlybeing collected into a four-volume book entitled TheMiddle East in Pictures: A Photographic History 1898-1934 by Eric G. Matson.

The Prints and Photograph section has severalcatalogs allowing geographic and subject access tothe collections, making the search for specific itemsor persons and places much easier. The Library alsomaintains a portrait file for tracking down picturesof individuals. Again, these can be reproduced, forthe majority of them are in the public domain.

Turning from the national to the institutionallevel in Washington, the Middle East Institute oper-ates a film library which distributes 16mm documen-tary films on the Middle East and North Africa fora nominal fee. Numerous additional institutions,colleges and universities throughout the country, in-cluding the University of California, Indiana Univer-sity, Arizona State University, Syracuse University,the University of Texas, to name but a few, havesmall to large film collections with titles in theMiddle East and North African area, who will alsolend them for showings at institutions for a nominalfee.

The National Union Catalog of Film and ProjectedMaterials lists a very large number of films andfilmstrips on the Middle East, and volumes dealingwith sound recordings list records varying in contentfrom recitations of the Qur'an to folk music of indi-vidual countries.

Like the Matson Archives, other collections ofearly photographers who worked in the Middle Eastare also still available. The Harvard Semitic Mus-eum holds a selection of one of these collections,the production of a French photographer, Felix Bon-fils, who worked with his family in Beirut for manyyears producing prints of striking quality. Many ofthese pictures made use of models to portray variouscostumes and situations, but the scenes and land-scapes are of use to both photographic historians andMiddle East historians. The George Eastman House inRochester, New York, also holds photos by Bonfils andother early photographers in its massive collection.

From the cursory discussion above of some non-print materials available in the United States, onesees that the true problem is not lack of materialsin the United States but lack of control of this ma-terial in a way that would assist scholars and li-

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brarians. But we are in a period of transition formediagraphic control. The Islamic Teaching Mater-ials Project, funded by the American Council ofLearned Societies and the National Endowment for theHumanities, hopes to create better control of mater-ials for teaching purposes in Middle East studies.Areas of its endeavors include a translation bank,an historical atlas, a teacher's guide for the wholeproject, and, in media, a film and recording catalogand a slide project. The slide project is dividedinto four major parts: Islamic ritual practices,lands and people, Islamic coins and medals, and arthistory. Slide packets will be made up for class-room use illustrating various topics, mostly identi-fied and collected from existing collections. Thiswill supplement the slide collections now availablefrom UNESCO on the Middle East and the American Nu-mismatics Society slides of coins. The film catalogwill highlight some of the most-used films for usein the classroom. That will be in addition, on thecollege level, of the current Teacher's ResourceHandbook for Near Eastern Studies by John Hawkins andJohn Maksik. This work is an annotated bibliographyof curriculum materials for pre-school through twelthgrade and covers not only books but also filmstrips,films, slides, records, tapes, cassettes and video-tapes of interest on the juvenile level. The Univer-sity of Michigan is also producing a film guide inMiddle East studies for classroom use.

Most of these works are focused on creating con-trol of a body of material useful for the classroomfrom pre-school to university level. To complementthese current efforts, this author is currently work-ing on a filmography on the Middle East and NorthAfrica focusing on a more comprehensive and annotatedlisting of over 2300 films and videotapes of use forteaching and research. This will help to locate someof the more obscure titles and outdated films, someno longer available for general distribution but heldin archives or libraries. These are the films whichhave helped form the image of the Middle East andNorth Africa through broadcasts on television, intheaters as short subjects, and in the classroomsover the last eighty years.

Films, regardless of quality, have done more toshape our images if for no other reason than theywere viewed by such large numbers of people, who hadless sophisticated information and background on thearea. This is also the way in which many childrenwere introduced to the Middle East. It is essentialto collect and view as many of these films as pos-sible, to see what really has been produced and whichare the quality titles. This organizing effort

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must be done also to identify footage which will beof use to film makers in producing library footagefilms on the Middle East—that is, films made of ex-isting footage with narration tying the images to-gether.

In conclusion, librarians and scholars are facedwith two separate problems in the area of non-printresources on the Middle East and North Africa. Thefirst is to locate, preserve, duplicate and use theincredibly large amount of materials available infilm, videotape, slides, still photographs and soundrecordings. Not only to preserve this material butto learn to use it and trace its influence must bea new goal. The second problem is to look at the ma-terial which has been produced, judge its volume andquality, and see how it has shaped our conceptionsand the images of those around us. And if the basicimages of the Middle East and North Africa are vagueor distorted or misrepresentative, then it is alsotime to locate areas which have not been covered andwork to produce new resources in non-print materialsto correct that situation.

Marsha McClintock

1. This survey was a non-scientific sampling of tele-vision viewers conducted at the Warner QUBE cabletelevision station in Columbus, Ohio. The sample,though demographics are available, was not balancedby those normal testing procedures for establish-ing random groups. The two-way cable tv systemallows viewers to answer questions with up to fivealternatives. Questions on the Middle East wereasked on two consequtive weeks and resulted in in-formation given in the text of this essay. Thequestions asked were meant to produce general in-formation on attitudes, not a scientific survey ofpublic opinion on the Middle East. The number ofviewers who responded fluctuated between about200 and 300.

2. Current research by this author, entitled The Mid-dle East and North Africa on Film: An AnnotatedFilmography, still in progress, identifies a groupof more than 2300 films dating from 1903 to 1979.

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