Description
The Middle East collection is part of the Asian Library and is housed, mostly, on the 8th deck of the Main Library stacks.
The collection is rapidly growing and currently holds approximately 45,000 volumes in Arabic, 10,000 volumes in Persian and several hundred volumes in other Middle Eastern languages. While materials in Urdu and other Indic languages are housed in the neighboring South Asian Collection, those in Turkish, Hebrew and Western languages are housed in subject specialized libraries. If brought together under a single roof, the total size of the Middle East Collection would be well over 100,000 volumes of monographs and serials. In addition, the collection holds a good number of micro-texts and audio-video materials.
While highest priority is given to teaching and research needs of University’s faculties and students, the Collection also strives to fill in major gaps in order to enhance its coverage. Besides local users, many faculties and graduate students in other universities regularly borrow materials from the Collection through inter-library loan.
The Middle East Collection (earlier known as West Asian Studies Collection) was established in 1965 under the Special Languages Department. In 1979 it was consolidated in the Asian Library that also houses Chinese, Japanese, Korean and South Asian Collections.
Version Date: March, 2006