Useful Collections in Other Libraries

It is not possible for a single library to hold a comprehensive research level collection on all the countries of the Middle East as well as on Islam. The scale of publications and difficulty in acquiring publications from some parts of the Middle East requires libraries with Middle Eastern interest to work cooperatively. The UK Libraries which belong to the Middle East Libraries Committee (MELCOM) have agreed an Area Specialisation Scheme which allocates groups of countries to particular libraries. Full details of this scheme are on the MELCOM website, but in general terms the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London) has strong holdings from North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya), whilst Exeter University has a special focus on the Arab Gulf states and Iraq, and Durham University collects material on the Sudan as well as official publications from all Middle East states. The British Library's primary focus is on Egypt and the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority), and the Bodleian Library (University of Oxford) is principally concerned with Classical Islamic Studies.

Other libraries in the UK, in addition to those above, with significant holdings in the fields of Middle East and Islamic Studies include:

• Cambridge University Library
• Edinburgh University Library
• Glasgow University Library
• John Rylands University Library (University of Manchester)
• Middle East Centre Library (University of Oxford)
• Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Library (University of Cambridge)
• Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine (London).