About the Collection

The Middle East Studies (MES) collection at the Ohio State University Library contains over 100,000 books on the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa from the 7th century A.D. to the present; on the religion of Islam throughout the world; and on Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages and literatures. The bulk of this collection is at Thompson library but we are responsible for the Middle East portion of collections in Fine Arts, Business and other libraries on campus.   Many other books on the Middle East particularly in Western languages, are available through OhioLink.

MES has a non-circulating reference collection in the Grand Reading Room at the Thompson Library. This is just a small part of the total Middle East collection. This collection contains the specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries and bibliographic tools, in Western and vernacular languages, necessary for the study of the Middle East, its languages and cultures and Islamic Studies.

We also subscribe to academic and popular journals from and about the Middle East as well as newspapers from the region. Current issues are in the Periodical section of the Thompson Library. Consult OSCAR for the location of older issues.

The MES office (Room 355 Thompson Library) manages the Middle East collection. We provide bibliographic assistance for researchers in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish as well as sources in western languages.

Philosophy of Collection Development in Arabic and Islamic Studies

At The Ohio State University

Ali Bakr Hassan

     The Arabic and Islamic collection is an essential part of OSU’s Library collections.  Therefore, first and foremost, the Library’s priorities and goals reflect and support those of the University as articulated by President Gee’s six goals, three of which include putting students first, creating new knowledge, and committing ourselves to our communities. The Library is deeply woven into this fabric of learning.  It is the surrogate mother of knowledge and is considered one of any university’s central components.  Thus, it is imperative that the Library is positioned at the intellectual crossroad of the university and its community, and it is therefore essential that we pay close attention to the quality and quantity of its collections.  It is also imperative that we maintain the collections in the most accessible fashion possible for the academic community.  To gain the trust of its community, the Library should promptly provide materials that the academic community needs.  A web survey for determining the Library’s direction, and assessing its emphasis, will be a useful tool.

    The subject specialist is the one who brings knowledge to life.  Figuratively speaking, he or she is a “middle man” in exchanging markets of knowledge about its civilizations.  The role of the subject specialist constantly changes to meet new challenges.  For example, one day may start out with making interpersonal communications with patrons, yet end with dealing with issues pertaining to cutting edge information technology.  He or she must be able to engage in a healthy mental exercise during a question and answer interview with a patron who needs help, and then be able to determine just what the patron needs or wants to say.

    When it comes to books, a subject specialist tries to find books that can become permanent items in the library’s collection.  A subject specialist never forgets about certain subjects, and keeps a ready eye open for any acquisition opportunities.  If a book in the Library’s collection is missing, he or she looks for it.  If it is determined that the book is permanently lost, the subject specialist finds a replacement as soon as possible before it goes out of print or becomes a rare book.  In each of these cases, the book has a different price.

     Purchasing books can be a delight or a nightmare.  On the one hand, collection development can be a delight because one ends up serving as a selection officer, a gift and exchange librarian, a cataloger, and a reference librarian, thus exercising complete control of the Library’s collection and feeling that one has an exciting, multifaceted job.  On the other hand, collection development can be somewhat of a nightmare because the subject specialist finds himself or herself in charge of a library within a library.  The subject specialist is therefore obliged to deal with a myriad of clerical and housekeeping tasks concurrently with the most intellectual and diversified responsibilities called for in the job.  Subject specialists can therefore occasionally end up feeling fragmented or distressed from dealing with a multitude of details.  In addition, when a university’s curriculum includes an Arabic studies program, such a program usually attracts students who are interested in classical and modern Arabic Language, literature, history, art and architecture, music, folklore and so forth.  The university library must be able to support all of these needs, in Arabic as well as non-Arabic language materials.

The Role of the Middle Eastern Subject Specialist: Challenges and Opportunities

     Collection development of Arabic and Islamic Studies materials requires a lengthy process, as well.  As Dr. Dona Straley at OSU rightly notes, “Nothing in Arabic, Persian or Turkish arrives shelf ready”[1] This observation continues to be true in our current collection development efforts.

    Like other librarians, subject specialists also feel that there is an urgent need “to teach students how to obtain information efficiently, evaluate its accuracy, and use it effectively.”[2]  As University of Iowa Librarian Nancy Baker also correctly observes, “information resources need to be integrated into the courses the students are taking—a far more time-intensive project than simply giving a lecture or tour.”[3] Subject specialists must work closely with professors to accomplish this goal of acquiring materials.

    The role of the subject specialist, however, goes beyond students.  Subject specialists must be in constant touch with departments and be engaged in departmental discussions regarding the collections on which their courses depend.  A subject specialist must be proactive with faculty members by asking for syllabi, by suggesting books that might help to support their curriculum, by conducting workshops, and by inviting students and faculty members to tour the Library’s vast collection of current materials.

    Subject specialists also serve the public, as well. Quite often, we have people that come and are just amazed at what we, subject specialists, can find, even after they have searched. and helping people learn how to find the answer on their own is just as important as the answer itself. Nancy Baker states that “Often, people come to us when they’re at the point of frustration.  I wish people would call their Subject Specialists before they reach this point”.  The public’s expectation is that subject specialists will ease these frustrations with “humor and enthusiasm but an underlying seriousness.”[4]

     There are some challenges, though, that persist for Middle Eastern subject specialists.  Some challenges are old while others are new.  Among these challenges is that private publishers in the Arab world are also booksellers.  Many of them have been creating their own catalogues, but they appear irregularly and are soon out-dated.  There is no equivalent to the American Yankee Book Peddler (YBP) and the Global Online Bibliographic Information (GOBI) system.  Sometimes, one has to deal individual booksellers, especially if they are in different countries.  Such a problem is not a common occurrence with most Western selector colleagues because GOBI and YBP make collection development fairly simple.

     There are a few vendors who try to match GOBI, but they do so only in paper or e-mail formats.  A few example vendors include:  The Library of Congress (Cairo office); Leila in Egypt; Sulaiman in Lebanon; Andromeda Research in Israel; and Dar Mahjar here in the U.S.  Unlike Yankee Book Peddler, however, these vendors name their own prices.  So, subject specialists sometimes seek other avenues to save money, such as choosing vendors who are cheaper than others.  While it’s possible to bargain with vendors to obtain a lower price, such a technique requires some training and experience.  As far as films and DVDs are concerned, films must be available in a good quality, usable by the American system, and most importantly, be subtitled.

     In the absence of copyright for many items, especially the classical works, one finds that a work is printed and published by many publishers, with many different price tags on each one.  The quality of printing, the kind of paper used, and the color of binding sometimes deceive the selector.  Those who have made buying trips to the Middle East have achieved much better bargains and coverage for current and retrospective publications with less expensive prices.

     During the past 30 years or so, the number of Arabic and Middle Eastern collections have increased and broadened dramatically in U.S. academic libraries.  Oil dependency, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Iranian Revolution, the rise of fundamentalism, and the most recent uprisings in the Arab World are among the reasons for the growth of Middle Eastern collections.  Now, with the increase of minorities attending universities, the challenge of collecting these materials has become even stronger.  With the fall of Saddam Hossein, for example, Northern Iraq has witnessed a renaissance in publishing by various groups in the Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish, and Assyrian languages due to Iraq’s new freedom of the press.

      Making an academic library relevant to a patron who rarely comes to the library should also be any publicly funded library’s priority.  There are a number of efforts to do so.  Placing rare materials in unlocked rooms, without endangering them to mutilation or theft, is a way of achieving this goal.  Digitization of these works is another solution.  With works written in non-Latin scripts, such as Arabic, however, results as good or legible, but improvements in software development has been encouraging. Another advantage of digital technology is that it increases access to the library’s collections.  However, books, in printed format, continue to be one of the most important sources of knowledge.  Historian Daniel Boorstin, a former Librarian of the Library of Congress, said that you can get all the information you want electronically, but it won't help you reach the unimagined question or the unwelcome answer. For that, you have to go to books.”  His successor, James Billington adds another important point about digitizing, which is that "the World Digital Library is a virtual story," and he observed that “people love other people's stories. Theories divide people, but stories unite people."[5]  Clearly, there will soon be more publications that are ‘born digital’ that will never be distributed in paper format.

     In short, to be a successful subject specialist today, one has to be really comfortable with rapid changes and always be ready to meet new challenges, yet also be able to live with and manage the old challenges, as well.

     For some subject specialists, teaching Middle Eastern Studies courses is the best part of their job.  Overview courses for undergraduate students are particularly special when the offered course deals with history, philosophy, culture, religion, and folklore.  Sharing research methods and experiences with graduate students is yet another positive aspect of the subject specialist’s role.

      However, some challenges still face the Arabic and Islamic Studies subject specialist.  One of these challenges is that a Middle Eastern subject specialist must collect balanced materials, and no matter how much academia or the intelligentsia try to teach, publish, or give balanced information or analysis regarding some issues about the Middle East, a 10-second television broadcast from an unfriendly station to people in a Middle East region, or an evangelist radio announcement, can kill those collection development efforts.  On March 12, 2008, for example, Mother Jones Magazine published an article by David Corn, entitled “McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam.”  This article is about Televangelist Rod Parsley, the pastor of a major church in here in the Great State of Ohio (the World Harvest Church of Columbus).  The article states that “Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual advisor an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it.”  Corn goes on to quote Parsley as saying that “… The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”[6]  Such statements need to be dealt with in a delicate way that requires plenty of patience.  On the one hand, one has to reach out to the Christian communities to take some steps toward promoting the noble ideas of Christianity and what the Christian religion is all about (i.e., that the message of Jesus Christ doesn’t condone such statements and that we should not have an ear for neo-crusaders).  On the other hand, because such statements might instigate hate crimes and vandalism against members of the Middle Eastern community, efforts should be made to ease attention and worries about Rev. Rod Parsley’s views.  It is worth noting that on October 2, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives (107^th Congress) passed H.Res. 280, which in part states that, “the House of Representatives recognizes the Islamic faith as one of the great religions of the world.”

     As many academic libraries today are interested in including collections that relate to minority communities in the U.S., tied to minorities of the world, in our case, Middle East members of these metropolitan area communities represent a good part of the library’s clientele.  If the subject specialist speaks their language, he or she would be of great value and assistance to patrons.

     There is still somewhat of a gap between many top university leaders and librarians.  Recently, however, some university leaders have started to recognize the significance of the library and its librarians.  These leaders have started to treat librarians as an equal component to professors in the teaching and learning processes.  More recognition and understanding is still needed, though.  The gap between university leaders and the library might be bridged by inviting leaders to annual report meetings, presentations, or displays related not only to the Middle Eastern collection, but also any other department collection.

VISION STATEMENT:

     The Arabic and Islamic Collection at OSU’s Library is ranked among the top collections in North American research libraries and in the top in the State of Ohio.  In cooperation with OhioLINK and the Middle East Center, the library tirelessly strives to excel through its continuously enriching its Arabic and Islamic studies collections in order to be an international gateway for OSU faculty, students, and staff in the fields of Arabic language, Islam, and Near Eastern cultures and history.

MISSION STATEMENT:

     Consistent with The Ohio State University priorities, goals, and objectives, and because of the recently approved Doctorate Program in Arabic, the Library's development mission is to identify, select and improve its collections.  Furthermore, the Library is committed to offering a vibrant intellectual environment and high quality library service with intellectual vigor to meet the curriculum, research, professional, and academic needs of the OSU community by providing biographical sources, reference tools, resources, and an academic atmosphere for research.  We also provide a wide variety of books and other resources to bring our diverse communities together.

Collection Development Policy:

     The collection development philosophy, which centers on acquiring everything available on locally important subjects, has given way to the realization that no research library, no matter how well endowed, can obtain comprehensive coverage of multiple disciplines and specializations.  As a part of the Library, the Middle Eastern section is committed to serving the needs of all members of the OSU community through the professional selection of print and non-print materials. The Library is committed to providing materials which present diverse points of view on current and historical issues of interest to the community. The Library has declared the following criteria and guidelines to govern the process of collection development:  We collect materials of different kinds and formats for Arabic and Islamic studies.  The exceptions would include books of the following kinds: textbooks, children, modern law, modern science and computer science, business, census, statistics, cookbooks, manuals, or pamphlets.

Collection Development Venues:

            A – Arabic:     1- Leila, Egypt

                                    2- Sulaiman Bookshop, Lebanon

                                    3- Dar Mahjar, Boston, Massachusetts

                                    4- Andromeda, Israel

            B- Western Languages:

                                    1- GOBI, USA

                                    2- Aux Amateurs, France

                                    3- De Gruyter, Germany

                                    4- Harrassowitz, Germany

            C. Book Fairs: 1- Cairo International Book Fair

                                    2- Riyadh International Book Fair

            D. Online Database and e-books

            E. Others: Amazon, and small publishers

SUBJECT SPECIALIST ROLE ASSIGNMENTS:

• Educate students on how to use the online databases
• Help graduate students build their bibliographies to pass their comp exams
• Take students on library tours during the beginning of each quarter to familiarize them with the collections
• Share collection materials with OhioLINK participants and through interlibrary loans
• Negotiate discount purchases with online vendors, the last of which was East View in order to purchase kotobarabia, in which I was able to obtain more than a 30% discount
• Balance collection development with traditional formats, electronic formats, and online services
• Acquire and build diverse resources that focus on Middle East minorities
• Attend various library meetings
• Attend the annual Middle Eastern Librarian Association conference each year
• Update the subject web page as new materials are added to the general collection
• Send a monthly list of newly arrived materials to the department
• Supervise staff and students and write evaluations of them
• Manage the budget in an effective and proactive manner
• Exchange dubs with other U.S. institutions
• Look for library sisterhood opportunities for exchanging duplicate items between U.S. libraries and libraries abroad
• Report quarterly to my supervisor regarding the work and activities I have been doing each quarter
• Write letters of recommendation for students to obtain scholarships (so far, all student scholarship applications have been successful)
• Provide Ask-a-Librarian assistance (e.g., during the second quarter of 2011, I addressed 36 questions via phone, email or in-person visits to my office)

 GOALS:

• Further develop three collection areas: 1) Early works regarding the rise of Islam until 1500; 2) Early Arab immigrants to North and South America; and 3) Works of women writers.  My goal is to fill these collection gaps within the next three years.
• Increase international emphasis, increase diversity, and create a sense of community while reaching out to serve others
• Expand Outreach Services and partnerships with other academic libraries
• Continue professional development via the Internet in order to stay informed about the latest online and database services on learning, research, and scholarly communication
• Continue ongoing participation in the ARL quality measures project, LibQual+, which will afford greater opportunity for developing new and more objective measures of quality (rather than merely quantity) of library programs and collections
• Expand collaborative endeavors between the Library’s Arabic and Islamic Collection and other public and private institutions of higher education within the State through OhioLINK
• Engaging the faculty members in the collection development by continuing to ask them about their interests.