Middle East Studies Resources

CMES supports research and scholarship by providing funds to strengthen the U of A Library’s Middle East Collection. The Center funds are used for the acquisition and cataloguing of materials and to provide personnel support to the University’s Middle Eastern Studies Librarian. The collection contains more than 65,000 volumes in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish, as well as approximately 125,000 titles on the Middle East in European languages. Other holdings include over 300 current periodicals relating to the Middle East, many in regional languages, back issues of another 200 periodicals that are no longer published; and more than 250 videos and films. For more than a decade, the library has added 4-5,000 titles on the Middle East annually.

The collection's strengths are its overall breadth, its concentrations in Middle Eastern languages, literature, and both modern and ancient history, and its extensive serial holdings. Students benefit from the presence of all important reference works and a wide selection of specialized monographs.

Middle Eastern Studies Librarian, Dr. Midhat Abraham, manages the collection and oversees its development. He is advised by a committee composed of the Center director and CMES affiliated faculty and members. Dr. Abraham travels to the Middle East regularly to purchase books and other materials published in the region. He also works closely with Social Sciences Librarian, Atifa Rawan, and Library Specialist in Middle East Materials, Saad A. Dagher.

For further information, please contact Midhat Abraham, Middle Eastern Studies Librarian, (520) 621-6381.