Digital Library for International Research
 
 Participants

The alphabetical list below describes the current overseas research center libraries participating in the DLIR program and the current state of their collections. In addition, collaborating libraries and archives can be found on the LALORC website.

American Academy in Rome (AAR), Rome, Italy

AAR was founded in 1894 to advance excellence in American scholarship and fine arts. The Academy's central purpose is its fellowship program through which the Academy awards thirty Rome Prize fellowships annually in the disciplines of literature, art history, classical studies, archaeology, post-classical humanistic studies, architecture, landscape architecture, as well as painting, sculpture, musical composition, and design arts.

AAR Library, (AAR-L)

The Library of the American Academy in Rome contains over 130,000 volumes, chiefly in the fields of Classical studies and the history of art and architecture. Especially strong are the collections in Classical archaeology and art, Greek and Latin literature, ancient topography (including the history of the city of Rome), ancient religions and related fields such as epigraphy, numismatics and papyrology. There is a good working collection in the history of art and architecture, especially Italian. The rare book collection comprises chiefly 16th-18th century imprints in classical studies, archaeology, art and architecture, including sizeable collections of Roman guidebooks and early art treatises. The library also houses small but noteworthy collections in contemporary art and architecture, landscape architecture, Italian history, American literature, historical travel literature, and music.

The Library acquires approximately 2,000 volumes per year and subscribes to approximately 600 current periodicals. Preference in acquisitions is given to scholarly publications in the core subjects listed above. A special priority is given to publications from the United States, in the conviction that the Academy has a responsibility to represent the best of American scholarship to Rome's multinational community. Italian local and regional publications in the Library's main fields, often difficult to obtain in the United States, are another acquisitions priority. The Academy Library welcomes gifts, especially the publications of its Fellows and readers. There is an active Friends of the Library program on both sides of the Atlantic.

The library is open stack and contains working space for approximately 80 persons. The heart of the Library is the Arthur Ross Reading Room, with handsome wooden shelving and furniture designed by McKim, Mead " White. The collections range over five stack levels. Books are non circulating outside the confines of the Academy. The Library offers access to selected databases, photocopiers, microreaders, copy stands and areas for computer use. The Barbara Goldsmith Rare Book Room, designed by Michael Graves, FAAR'62, RAAR'79, was dedicated in June 1996. Another significant resource is the Academy's Photographic Archive, which contains valuable documentation of Roman monuments, as well as a record of the work of past Rome Prize Fellows.

Over 50 readers use the Library every day. The main users of the Library are the Fellows and Residents of the American Academy, but reading passes are also issued to Italian scholars, qualified Roman residents and Visiting Artists and Scholars. Persons applying for a reading pass are generally expected to have a graduate degree and to bring a letter of introduction, but exceptions are made for the use of publications not available elsewhere.

The Academy is a founding member of URBS, the Unione Romana Biblioteche Scientifiche (Union of Scholarly Libraries in Rome), an association of sixteen research libraries with an online union catalog. The American Academy in Rome is also a special member of the Research Libraries Group (RLG), the leading scholarly library consortium in America, and participates in its SHARES program.

AAR Photographic Archive (AAR-P)

The Photographic Archive of the American Academy in Rome provides a visual record of the architecture and topography of ancient Rome and Italy and the Roman Empire, for the purposes of scholarship, research and publication. The Photographic Archive also preserves and provides access to a number of historic photograph collections on archaeology, art and architecture, as well as landscape architecture and gardens. It includes special collections important to the history of the American Academy in Rome. In addition to its own collections, the American Academy also houses the Fototeca Unione, founded by Ernest Nash with the donation of his own collection and administered jointly by the International Union of Institutes of Archaeology, History and History of Art in Rome and the American Academy in Rome. The Fototeca Unione is a growing collection focusing on the architecture and topography of the Roman world.

All of these collections have artifactual value for the history of photography as well as documentary value for the study of their specific subjects.

The photograph collections of the American Academy were acquired over the years mainly through donations. They represent an exceptional document of the activity of noted personalities, master photographers as well as scholars, active from the second half of the 19th century (Parker collection: Roman and Medieval Architecture), to the beginning of the 20th century (Van Deman collection: archaeological subjects, especially wall structures and aqueducts; Moscioni collection: archaeology, art and architecture; Askew collection: the Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum), and the later 20th century (Masson collection: Rome and Italian architecture; and others).

Special collections include the Berman collection of scenography and theater costume design. The Fellows' Work collection is of great value for the Academy's institutional history; it documents the individual and collaborative projects of Fellows and visitors in the School of Fine Arts at the American Academy in Rome (1910-1958).

Access to the Collection: The Photographic Archive of the American Academy in Rome provides a study collection of over 60,000 prints in Rome. Scholars holding reading cards at the American Academy Library or any of the Libraries of URBS (Unione Biblioteche Romane Scientifiche) and members of the institutes of the International Union of Institutes of Archaeology, History and History of Art in Rome are automatically eligible to access the collection. Others may apply to the Photo Archivist for an appointment. Reproductions for study or publication are available for a fee. Users who are unable to come to Rome may consult the published microfiche edition of the Fototeca Unione: Ancient Roman architecture: photographic archive on microfiche (2 v., 1979-1982) or the URBS catalog.

American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR), Amman, Jordan

The American Center of Oriental Research (ACOR), established in 1968, is dedicated to promoting research and publication in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, history, Near Eastern languages, art and architecture, conservation, and many other aspects of Near Eastern studies. ACOR's four main program areas include a fellowship program that awards over 20 fellowships annually, assistance to about 15 international archaeological projects every year, its own archaeological projects, and an impressive publication series.

The ACOR library is one of the premier research libraries in the region. Its two-floor facility, open to the public, currently holds 15,675 volumes and 7,253 bound periodicals representing 14,682 separate issues. Areas of focus include Near Eastern archaeology, anthropology, Arabic language and culture, history and political science of Jordan and the region, history of art and architecture, geography, geology, and related studies. This collection was built over the years by U.S. Government and private funding, as well as many donations from ACOR's friends and scholars. Significant collections were acquired from the personal libraries of G. Ernst Wright, James Sauer, and J. Lawrence Angel. ACOR's impressive reference collection contains many sources that are not available elsewhere in Jordan, including the complete Loeb Classical Library, The Assyrian Dictionary, the Lexikon der Agyptologie, The Cambridge Ancient History, and the Survey of Western and Eastern Palestine by H.H. Kitchener and C.R. Conder. ACOR's rare books collection contains excellent works on the first Western travels in the region, including DeSaulcy's Journey Round the Dead Sea and in the Bible Lands, Guerin's Description de la Palestine, Robert's The Holy Land, Volney's Travels, and many others.

In addition, the ACOR library contains an excellent collection of approximately 1,500 maps that covers Jordan's topography, geology, and archaeological sites. This collection also contains very good regional maps, difficult to find topographic maps of Palestine, and the complete Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients. Furthermore, the library holds an impressive collection of over 10,000 slides on many archaeological projects and sites in Jordan. A unique aspect of this collection is that it contains slides on ACOR's Petra Church Project, from its inception to completion.

American Institute of Bangladesh Studies, Philadelphia, PA

The American Institute of Bangladesh is a consortium of US universities and colleges involved in research on Bangladesh. Our mission is to improve the scholarly understanding of Bangladesh culture and society in the United States and to promote educational exchange between the US and Bangladesh. By sending undergraduate and graduate students as well as senior scholars to Bangladesh, we also promote a better understanding of America in Bangladesh.

American Institute for Indian Studies (AIIS), 4 offices, 2 research centers, and 7 language centers in India

The American Institute of Indian Studies is a consortium of about sixty-five major American universities and colleges. The Institute was established in 1962 with prior approval of the Government of India to promote Indian Studies, civilization, and culture in the United States by:offering a fellowship program for research by faculty and postgraduate/ graduate students in the fields from anthropology to zoology;

  1. teach Indian languages to American students by offering language training courses in places where these languages are spoken so that the students are exposed to the Indian speakers;

  2. establishing research and archival facilities in art, art history, archaeology, and ethnomusicology through its centers, the Center for Art & Archaeology and Archives and the Research Center for Ethnomusicology;

  3. publishing results of the research work in India by its research scholars;

  4. organizing seminars, workshops and conferences in all fields of Indian Studies; and

  5. supporting group projects involving cooperative research by Indian and American scholars.

The Institute's central headquarters at plot no. 22, Sector 32, Institutional Area, Gurgaon, was partially funded by the Government of India through the Ministry of Human Resource Development. In addition to this, the Institute has regional offices in Kolkata, Chennai and Pune for facilitating research activities. It also maintains language teaching centers at Jaipur, Lucknow, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkatta, Vizag, and Madhurai.

Center for Art and Archaeology (AIIS-CAA), Gurgaon, India

AIIS-CAA is the premier research institution in the Indian subcontinent devoted to the study of art and archaeology. Scholars from America, India, and all over the world turn to AIIS-CAA for information on the art and archaeology of India. The Center's professional staff is internationally recognized and widely consulted. Its outstanding well organized photo-archive and superb open-stack library are extensively used. Among the publications of the CAA-AIIS is the multi-volume Encyclopaedia of Indian Temple Architecture.

The photo-archive contains a systematically organized reference collection of over 150,000 documented and accessioned black-and-white photographs together with more than 16,000 slides on the art and architectural heritage of India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. The photo-archive's collection represents: architecture (including Indian Baroque), sculpture, terracotta, paintings, and numismatics.

In an example of cooperation between DLIR and the Digital South Asia Library (DSAL, also funded through the Department of Education's TICFIA program), the entire AIIS photo-archive is now being digitized and placed on the web for global access via the F-PAD database. The DSAL website gives a glimpse of some selected collection of the holdings.

The library has collections of more than 55,000 books and bound volumes of journals pertaining to Indian art, architecture, archaeology, sculpture, paintings, epigraphy, numismatics, history, Indology (covering also the original ancient books and works on Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism), as well as those concerning world art and architecture etc. Other library collections pertain to costumes, handicrafts, textile, jewelry, design and decoration, performing arts, etc. The library also has on its shelves old and current issues of 350 journal titles, Indian and foreign, covering art, archaeology, and Indology, as well as 900 offprints of aricles and 600 maps.

Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (AIIS-ARCE), Gurgaon, India

AIIS-ARCE is the only one center of its kind in the country that serves as a resource center for researchers in ethnomusicology and related disciplines. Its archives are widely recognized among audiovisual archives worldwide as a model of their type. The core of the collection consists of audio and video recordings of performing arts of India, including also materials from South Asia that are relevant to the study of ethnomusicology in India.

The collections, representing 154 individuals and institutions, are all acquired by voluntary deposit. They range from classical Indian music and dance to rituals, epics, and ballads to regional and popular genres of performance throughout the country. The field collections also include journals, notes, photographs and other supplementary documentation. An important aspect of developing the archives has been to bring to India collections of Indian music and oral traditions that are held in archives outside India and hence unavailable to researchers in India. A recent addition in this area has been the recordings by the British musicologist A.H. Fox Strangways made in India in 1910-11, deposited at ARCE-AIIS by the National Sound Archives of the British Library, UK.

AIIS-ARCE's ethnomusicological collections are supported by a large collection of commercially published recordings ranging from 78 rpm phonodiscs to compact discs. The commercial recordings include a collection of world music as well. There is also a collection of documentary films, largely on video. The audio visual collections at AIIS-ARCE are supported by a reference library with a highly focussed collection of books, journals, articles and newspaper clippings that aim to provide a library for the discipline of ethnomusicology as well as background materials to aid the field researcher in India at a more detailed level.

American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS)

AIMS, founded in the early 1980s, was the first regional American overseas research center to be established. Through centers in Tunisia and Morocco its purview includes the entire Maghrib: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. AIMS is a major locus of academic exchange between the US and North African countries. Fellowships for doctoral candidates and senior scholars are offered mainly in the humanities and social sciences, but awards in technological studies are also made. There is also a grant competition for Maghribi scholars and graduate students wishing to undertake research in a North African country other than their own.

Centre d'Etudes Maghrebines a Tunis (AIMS-CEMAT), Tunis, Tunisia

CEMAT, which has a regional focus and fosters research on the entire Maghrib, was founded in 1985 as part of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. The library contains 1,650 monographs, 9120 dissertations, 27 journal titles and 800 maps. The collection of 9120 dissertations concerning any aspect of any of the five countries of the Maghrib is unique as it gathers in one place dissertations and theses from the Maghrib and around the world produced on North Africa.

Tangier American Legation Museum (AIMS-TALM), Tangier, Morocco

TALM, the second branch of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, is located in the old walled city of Tangier in a charming complex of 45 rooms built around several courtyards. The original site was offered as a gift to the U.S. government in 1821 by the Moroccan Sultan Moulay Suleiman. Since 1976, a public non-profit organization, TALM, has rented this national landmark from the U.S. government. Today, TALM is active on several fronts: operating a museum open to the public, collaborating with a Moroccan NGO in social work and renovation activity in the old city, and functioning as the AIMS research and conference center in Morocco.

In the 25 years since its inception the research library has developed into a focused and evolving collection benefiting from a number of major donations: the Reed and Hart collections of books on Morocco; the Angus collection with English language material dating from the 17th century; the Loomis collection with a wide range of Spanish Protectorate publications, the Pendar collection of pre-1940 French editions; a collection of materials dealing with the Western Sahara issue donated by Professor John Damis; and a collection of books and other materials dealing with the World War II landings in North Africa (Operation Torch), donated by Gordon Browne. More recently the Forbes family donated Malcolm Forbes' library, consisting of 2,000 works including old and unique documents and a rare book and Portuguese pamphlet collection, many dating back several hundred years.

Of particular note, the TALMS Library contains a collection of 19th century travel accounts, books on the precolonial and colonial period, and studies on social organization (tribes, Berbers, etc.). The library maintains a collection of English language newspapers published in Tangier (The Tangier Gazette or Moghreb El Aksa, 1884 to1960) in hard copy. Also on microfilm are copies of a unique newspaper published in London devoted to Morocco (1918-1924) as well as dispatches and letters pertaining to U.S diplomatic history with Morocco. The Reed and Forbes donations include a large number of historical photographs of prominent Moroccan and American personalities from the 1950-1990 period. The Museum's extensive art collection contains a series of engravings by Wenceslaus Hollar depicting the English in Tangier in the 17th century as well as other engravings related to this period.

American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS), Colombo, Sri Lanka

The American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies (AISLS) was established in 1995 to foster excellence in American research and teaching on Sri Lanka, and to promote the exchange of scholars and scholarly information between the United States and Sri Lanka. The Institute serves as the professional association for US-based scholars and other professionals who are interested in Sri Lanka. There are over 50 individual members, who are drawn primarily from social sciences and humanities disciplines, including anthropology, development studies, education, history, geography, linguistics, literature and drama, performance studies and ethnomusicology, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, and women's studies. There are also 14 institutional members.

Opened in January 2001, the Center offers a small library of locally published materials on Sri Lanka, as well as access to some web-based resources. Since 2002, the library has been acquiring new scholarly books and key serials published in Sri Lanka.

American Institute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS), Sana'a, Yemen

AIYS, the first foreign institute invited to initiate activities in Yemen, was founded in 1978 to promote pre- and post-doctoral research and scholarly and cultural exchange between the United States and Yemen. The only American interdisciplinary academic organization active on the Arabian Peninsula, AIYS has helped bring about a great expansion in the number of researchers interested in Yemen. Fields of research represented in Yemen through AIYS programs include a broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, as well as selected sciences such as agronomy, botany, geology, and environmental studies. AIYS holds fellowship competitions for US and Yemeni scholars.

The AIYS library in Sana'a is one of the best collections on Yemen world-wide. The library has some 3000 monographs, the majority in Arabic; some 50 journal runs, both Yemeni and foreign; and a unique collection of 6000 articles dealing with Yemen. It contains most of the serious scholarly works by Yemenis and non-Yemenis, as well as many books produced throughout Yemen, including a collection of Yemeni school books. The collection includes 703 maps. There are also government reports, statistics and laws from pre-unification North and South Yemen, and from the unified state since 1990. The library also contains a significant collection of development studies, over 100 of them unpublished, on topics such as urban and regional planning, agricultural production, health and family, etc. AIYS' collection of more than 170 dissertations dealing with Yemen gathers in one place an extensive body of research on Yemen not otherwise accessible; an effort is now being made to identify and acquire also the dissertations produced in Eastern Europe by scholars from South Yemen before the unification.

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American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), Cairo, Egypt

ARCE was founded in 1948 to support research in all areas of the history and culture of Egypt. The Marilyn M. and William Kelly Simpson Library of the American Research Center in Egypt, established in 1978 and significantly expanded in space and holdings from the mid-1990s on, plays an important role in strengthening the cooperation between American and Egyptian scholars. Through a recent agreement with the American University in Cairo, AUC graduate students have access to the ARCE library and ARCE staff and fellows in turn may use the AUC library. Graduate students from all universities in Egypt also access the library and ARCE is proud of the number of Egyptian graduate students taking advantage of that opportunity.

The library currently houses over 16,000 items, which include a number of private collections that have been acquired over the years. These donations include materials from Dr. Ahmed Fakhry, Charles Kuentz, Dr. Gamal Mokhtar, Dr. El-Sayyid El-Baz El-Arini, and Dr. Alexander Badawy. Also of note are the original materials of the savaging of Abu Simbel monuments from 1963-1968, and the Martha Roy collection of Coptic Music. Acquisitions also include rare sets of archeological reports, monograph series, and catalogues related to Egypt's past. Particularly important new additions to the library are the final reports from the Egyptian Antiquities Development Project (ADP) and the Egyptian Antiquities Project (EAP) project directors and principal investigators on restoration and conservation of Egyptian antiquities. ARCE is the only library that holds these reports. The materials in Arabic include journals, indices, and catalogues of Egyptian library collections and the Egyptian museum. Of special note is the Photostat collection of Ibn Sina's (Avicenna) works in Arabic. Priorities for holdings development include the modern history and social cultures of Egypt and the Middle East as well as works on restoration and conservation of antiquities are a priority for future acquisitions.

American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT)

ARIT was founded in 1964 to promote research and exchange related to Turkey in all fields of the humanities and social sciences. ARIT supports all aspects of research on Turkey from prehistory through the present with offices and research facilities in Istanbul and Ankara. ARIT has fellowships programs for US researchers and Turkish scholars.

ARIT Ankara (ARIT-A)

The library of the Ankara Branch of ARIT has recently been named the Toni M. Cross Library in memory of its long-time director. The library contains over 7,000 monographs, 300 journal titles, 1,000 offprints, 200 maps and 650 slides and prints. The greater part of the collection deals with the archaeology of ancient Turkey and neighboring regions, and spans the millennia from the Paleolithic to the Byzantine period. The Anatolian collection of Professor Carl Blegen, the American archeologist who re-excavated Troy in the 1930s, formed the original core of the Ankara library. Expanding from this core collection, the archaeology section now covers the geographical areas of Anatolia, Greece, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Iran, the Aegean, Cyprus, and Italy, with sections on Classical Antiquity, the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine period. The collection is especially strong in publications of archaeological surveys and excavations within Turkey itself, from Assos in the northwest to Zeugma on the Euphrates in the southeast.

Here too are all the Turkish publications (many written in both English and Turkish) of government-sponsored salvage work along the Euphrates and Tigris river systems, which began in the late 1960s, and of the reports presented at the week-long archaeology symposium organized annually since 1980 by the Turkish Department of Antiquities and Museums. A solid reference section contains such basic items as the Loeb editions of the classical authors, the Cambridge Ancient History, Paulys Realencyclopaedie der Classischen Altertums-Wissenschaft, and the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. The Ankara library also has a fine collection of maps, including topographical maps of regions of Turkey, as well as a growing collection of works dealing with the modern Republic of Turkey, with emphasis on Ataturk and Kemalism, cultural anthropology, economic development, present-day politics, and sociology.

ARIT Istanbul (ARIT-I)

The library at ARIT-Istanbul, which covers the Byzantine, Ottoman, and modern Turkish periods, has approximately 8,300 monographs, 180 journal titles, and 2,500 offprints. The library is housed on two floors. One floor is devoted to the Dr. H. Kenneth Snipes Byzantine Collection, a collection of 4500 volumes donated in 1997 from the estate of Prof. Snipes, a textual scholar who had long been working on Michael Psellus. His collections reflected this interest in textual studies; its particular strength is in edited editions and facsimiles of classical and Byzantine period texts, in the reference tools necessary to work with those texts, and in catalogs of manuscript collections around the world. Added to ARIT's existing resources in the Byzantine area, this significant collection nearly quadrupled the size of ARIT's Byzantine holdings, making ARIT-Istanbul's library one of the best in Turkey for research into Byzantine literary and intellectual history. The collection includes a complete Migne Patrologia Graeca, Bonn Corpus and Loeb Classical Texts, a large number of the Teubner and Oxford Texts series, and complete or major runs of 45 journals related to Byzantine studies, and numerous monographs in the Byzantine period art and architectural history of Turkey. Another floor of the library is devoted to Ottoman and Turkish studies, complemented by works on Islam and the Middle East in general. The number of monograph titles in this collection is 4,500. This collection has been slowly built up since the founding of the Institute 37 years ago, over a third of it coming from donations. Approximately half of the collection is Turkish language material, much of it from before 1970 and now difficult to find. The collection is particularly strong and most used in Ottoman historical studies, edited texts, general and regional studies, but it also has significant holdings in Republican Turkish history and in Turkish art, architecture and literature. The journal collection of 130 titles is strong in both Turkish and Middle Eastern areas.

American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA), Athens, Greece

The American School of Classical Studies, founded in 1881, is the oldest American overseas research center, and has by far the largest library collections of the ORCs, with a combined total of 185,000 volumes plus archives, collections of maps and topographical surveys, and photo archives. The library system consists of two separate collections, the Carl W. and Elizabeth P. Blegen Library, dedicated to the study of the ancient Greek world, including prehistoric and classical Greek archaeology and art, literature and language, history, and related fields; and the Gennadius Library, dedicated to the study of post-antique Greece, and more broadly, the southern Balkans and the Mediteranean world as they affected Hellenic civilization. The DLIR catalog contains records for maps and books containg maps in these libraries. The complete holdings of the ASCSA libraries can be searched on AMBROSIA, the OPAC shared with the British School of Archaeology.

Blegen Library (ASCSA-B)

The Blegen Library began in 1888 as a single reading room. An initial addition to the library was dedicated in 1915, and, in 1959, a new wing was added, funded by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation. A further extension, partially funded by the United States Agency for International Development, was completed in 1991, effectively doubling the space of the library. The collection currently has over 80,000 volumes including more than 500 periodical titles as well as standard electronic resources for research in the classics and archaeology such as the web-based L'Annee Philologique, Gnomon, The Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri, Dyaboloa, JSTOR, Nestor, TOCS-In, WOrldCat, and a number of electronic journals. The Library provides a computer room as well as computer and net links in the main reading room. Over 1,400 readers of all nationalities use the library, totalling some 14,000 reader visits per year. The library is non-circulating, and all books must be consulted on the premises.

Gennadius Library (ASCSA-G)

The Gennadius Library, opened in 1926, offers a rich mine of rare books as well as research collections, archives, and manuscripts for the study of Byzantine, Ottoman, and contemporary Greece. At the core of the Library is the 26,000-volume personal collection of the 19th century bibliophile, scholar, and diplomat, John Gennadius, who donated it with the understanding that the School would house it and keep it accessible to students and scholars. The original building was constructed with the assistance of the Carnegie Corporation and completed in 1926; since then the Library has expanded several times, first in the early 1970's, and since 1997 as part of a major campaign, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and many other organizations and individuals, including a 350-seat auditorium for the School's already active lecture and conference program.

The collection has grown to 105,000 volumes, as well as extensive archives documenting, in particular, the emergence of the modern Greek state after the Revolution of 1821 against the Ottoman Empire, southern Balkan politics and diplomacy, and modern Greek literature and art. The Library also holds a collection of rare maps, prints, drawings, and paintings, including over 200 watercolors of Greek landscapes by the 19th century artist, Edward Lear. In addition, the archives hold the papers of Greece's Nobel prize winners George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis. The Gennadius Library, which has approximately 12,000 reader visits per year, is linked electronically to the Blegen Library so that readers can take advantage of the Blegen's rich electronic resources.

Center for Khmer Studies (CKS), Siem Reap, Cambodia

Founded in 1999, the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) is an international, non-governmental, not-for-profit membership-based consortium of universities, organizations and individuals dedicated to study, teaching and research on Khmer civilization and the cultures of the Mekong region.

The Center for Khmer Studies has now entered its third year of activity, and its fifth year of existence. Incorporated under U.S. and Cambodian law, the Center's goal is to promote scholarly interest in the region and to bring Khmer scholars into contact with their international counterparts for the purpose of fostering understanding of Cambodia and its place within Southeast Asian. Its programs aim to support Cambodian students, scholars and artists in the social sciences and humanities.

The CKS library is the largest public academic library in Cambodia outside the capital Phnom Penh. It provides the essential service of ensuring access to materials on Cambodian history and culture. Its large book collection serves as an invaluable information resource to local and foreign readers including scholars and researchers in Khmer and Southeast Asian Studies.

In just two years, the library has developed a large collection of documents: over 3000 volumes and titles, and more than 20 journals such as Kampuja Suriya Newsletter, Bulletin de l'EFEO, Asianie, Asian Perspectives and journals of SPAFA and Siam Society. The collection also contains unique out-of-print publications from local and overseas libraries, a wide selection of M.A. and Ph.D. dissertations from overseas universities and research papers from Cambodian students at the Universities of Phnom Penh. All disciplines focus on Cambodia and the Southeast Asia region in the fields of history, archaeology, arts, linguistics, religion, literature, and politics. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, directories, maps and guidebooks, as well as 3 national newspapers (in English, French and Khmer languages) are also available for reference.

The CKS library is in process of building up its extensive on-line catalogue soon to be accessible.

Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (CAARI), Nicosia, Cyprus

CAARI was founded to promote the study of the archaeology and related humanities disciplines of Cyprus. The Institute's library holds approximately 6,900 monographs, 130 current journal titles, and around 4,130 off-prints of articles. The core of the present library is the personal collection of books that once belonged to Professor Claude F.A. Schaeffer, the eminent French archaeologist who excavated in Cyprus and the Near East. Its particular strength lies in the works published on Levantine prehistory in the decades before and after the Second World War, particularly in French. This nucleus has been supplemented by exchanges, donations and purchases, including those made through a generous grant from the J. Paul Getty Trust, with particular emphasis on all periods of Cypriote archaeology and history, and on the civilizations of Cyprus' neighbors. Also included in CAARI's library are nearly 800 maps, archival material from various sources, including papers from the estates of Professor Schaeffer, Professor J.R. Stewart, Miss Joan du Plat Taylor, and Monsieur J.-C. Courtois, and 600 photographs and drawings. In addition, there is an archaeological study collection of over 14,000 items that supports the library as a research organ. Cataloged in a dBase program, the collection includes ceramics, lithics, metallurgical samples, geological materials, and flora and fauna dating from the Neolithic through the Medieval period.

West African Research Center (WARC), office in Dakar, Senegal; country coordinators in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Mali

The WARC library consists of classic and reference works, reviews and periodicals catalogs and dictionaries for a total of more than 4000 works currently cataloged and 600 works still to be cataloged. The West African Research Association (WARA) is partnered with Michigan State University and the Institut Fondemental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN) in the creation of the Multi-lingual Digital Library for West African Sources and therefore has access to exceptional and otherwise inaccessible materials in various media concerning language and culture in the West African region.

W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR), Jerusalem, Israel

AIAR, founded in 1900 in Jerusalem as the American School of Oriental Research, is the oldest American research center for Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the Middle East. The library currently contains 28,000 volumes, half of which are monographs and half journals. The major focus is on the archaeology, history and ancient literature and languages of Syria-Palestine, that is, the Levant, including the modern countries of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria with a strong representation of materials from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cyprus and the Aegean. The slide collection has several thousand items, the photo archive over a thousand pictures, and the cartographic collection almost one thousand maps. One of the unique features of the library is a comprehensive collection of archaeological field reports appearing in the monographs and journals, beginning with the earliest reports in the late 19th century. There are also a number of complete journal series specializing in Near Eastern archaeology, history and ancient Semitic languages, as well as early examples of maps, including some of the earliest scientific cartographic surveys of Palestine that are not found elsewhere in Israel. The library maintains a collection of dissertations written in western languages and in Hebrew on archaeology and Semitic languages.

New centers and their intellectual resources

One of CAORC's newest members, the Center for South Asian Libraries, is dedicated to enhancing access to the cultural heritage of South Asia through an international federation of libraries and archives. CAORC is also working with others of its members: the American Institute for Bangladesh Studies, the American Institute of Iranian Studies, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, the Mexico-North Research Network, the Palestinian American Research Center, as well as with American consortial institutions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mongolia to develop intellectual resources. You can learn more about these centers at:

Collaborating libraries and their intellectual resources

 

Please direct any feedback regarding this website to: dlir@caorc.org