Current Bibliographical Work: The Middle East

Extract

My Purpose in this brief presentation is to offer a summary of developments in the field of Middle Eastern and Islamic bibliographic studies. Examples (and they are only examples of what is a widespread recognition of the importance of bibliography in the scholarly enterprise) are drawn from various fields of activity, from the immense Library of Congress to the efforts of a lone bibliographer at her PC in Denver. I have also tried to give an international flavor with an example of the important work being done in Istanbul. I have appended the names and addresses of the bibliographic projects to which I refer in this presentation.

The jewel in the crown, so to speak, of the bibliographic effort of the Library of Congress is the Near East National Union List, a catalogue of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish language books and serials in libraries in the United States and Canada.