A research collection in Middle Eastern studies.
The center holds more than 20,000 books, journals, and newspapers in Arabic and English — rare periodicals, Arab American diaspora publications, and archival material, much of it held nowhere else in the United States. Materials are consultable on site.
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The collections
Rifʿat al-Saʿīd Library
Smaller in size, this library houses many of the journal collections, including a range of titles from Egypt as well as materials from the journalism collection.
Catalogd and searchable
Barbara Harlow Library
The main library, in the reading room. Dedicated to the late Barbara Harlow, a pivotal scholar whose work centered on women of the region, postcolonial thinking, and human rights activism. Many of the books come from her personal collection.
Cataloging in progress
Dr. Tariq and Jacqueline Ismail Archives
Dedicated to Tariq and Jacqueline Ismail, distinguished scholars who worked out of Calgary and founded the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies. Their personal library, with an extensive archive of Middle Eastern newspapers, posters, and memorabilia.
Cataloging in progress
Subject guides
- Serials and periodicalsJournals and serial publications from the United States, Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine, several of them held nowhere else in the country.
- Journalism in the Arab worldArabic-language works on the history of the press, from the nineteenth-century Egyptian and Lebanese papers to the Nasser era.
- Women in the Arab worldWriting by and about women across the region — memoir, activism, literary criticism, and social research.