UCLA Library Collections and Internet Resources in:

MIDDLE EASTERN, ARMENIAN AND CENTRAL ASIAN STUDIES

Kuwaiti Weaving from Beit al-Sadu

Presently numbering in excess of 350,000 titles, the collections consist of materials from and relating to the Arab World, Armenia, Central Asia, Iran and Israel. Especially noteworthy are the Armenian collection (the largest in the country) and manuscript holdings in Arabic, Armenian, Ottoman Turkish and Persian. Current and retrospective materials in all languages are collected in print, microform, and electronic formats and include monographs, serial publications, reference works, dissertations, and conference proceedings.

The UCLA Middle Eastern collections support undergraduate, graduate, teaching and research activities for a number of campus academic departments, organized research units, and interdepartmental degree programs. Principal among these are the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, History, Political Science, Sociology, Economics, The von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, and the interdepartmental program in Islamic Studies.

Most area materials are housed in the Young Research Library, which concentrates on acquiring research-level area materials in the humanities and social sciences. Publications in other disciplines are collected by specialized campus libraries: the Biomedical Library (which also houses Arabic and Persian medical manuscripts and Arabic medical texts from Cairo, Egypt), the Science and Engineering Libraries, the Arts Library, the Music Library, the Law Library, the Management Library and the Maps and Government Information Library collect area materials in their particular subject fields. The College Library collects mainly English-language area materials in a broad range of subjects at the undergraduate level. Several manuscript collections, some with published catalogs, are accessible through the Department of Special Collections in the University Research Library.

As a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) and the Middle East Microforms Project (MEMP) which is administered by CRL, the UCLA Library participates with other major libraries in the cooperative acquisition and preservation of a wide range of research materials from and about the Middle East, including archives and manuscripts, theses and dissertations, newspapers, official gazettes and other government documents, collections of personal and/or official papers of important scholars, authors and political figures, and political ephemera. Individuals with borrowing privileges at the UCLA Library may obtain MEMP and CRL materials through interlibrary loan.

The Middle Eastern Studies Bibliographer, David Hirsch, together with Michael Hopper, the Head of the Middle East Division at Harvard University, has compiled a list of current Arab American newspapers and periodicals. A preliminary bibliography of these can be accessed by clicking on Arab American Periodicals Project. Currently, a similar effort, Persian American Periodicals Project, is being initiated in conjunction with William J. Kopycki of the University of Pennsylvania.

In 1997 the Middle Eastern Studies Bibliographer received a grant from the American Institute for Yemeni Studies for a project entitled "Bibliographic Access to Official Publications of the Yemen Republic." He traveled to Yemen in 1998 to collect publications. A preliminary bibliography of these acquisitions can be accessed by clicking Official Publications of the Yemen Republic: a bibliography of recent acquisitions in the UCLA Research Library.

In 1999 the Middle Eastern Studies Bibliographer received a grant from the Statewide Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC) for a project entitled "Publications of Middle Eastern Emigre Groups in Western Europe." Funding from this grant enabled him to travel to five western European capitals with significant Middle Eastern immigrant populations: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin and Stockholm to collect and document publications. A preliminary bibliography of these acquisitions which include publications of the Afghan, Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Iranian, Kurdish and Turkish communities in Europe, can be accessed by clicking Bibliographic Access To Periodical Publications Of Middle Eastern Groups in Western Europe: a bibliography of recent acquisitions in the UCLA Research Library.

In 2002 the Middle Eastern Studies Bibliographer received an additional grant from the Statewide Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC) for a project entitled "Publications of Middle Eastern Emigre Groups in Australia." Funding from this grant enabled him to travel to Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and document publications. A preliminary bibliography of these acquisitions which include publications of the Afghan, Arab, Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Iranian, Kurdish and Turkish communities in Australia, can be accessed by clicking Bibliographic Access To Periodical Publications Of Middle Eastern Groups in Australia : a bibliography of recent acquisitions in the UCLA Research Library.

In order to locate books and serials in Middle Eastern languages in the UCLA library system you must search using the Library of Congress transliteration tables. UCLA adheres to the Library of Congress system for all languages except Armenian for which UCLA employs slight variations. Click to view the transliteration tables for Arabic and Persian.