Library Resources in or about the MIDDLE EAST

AMEEL

Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library (AMEEL) is a project funded for four years (ending October 2009) by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI Grant. AMEEL enlarges and expands the work of OACIS (see below), which is the bibliographical building block for AMEEL goals. These include: digitizing of about 100,000 pages of scholarly journal content from 10 Middle Eastern countries; providing for training sessions in Arabic digitization; developing workshops to facilitate technologically delivered interlibrary-loan between U.S. and Middle Eastern libraries; and building a substantial amount of technology infrastructure to partner with other information providers (of scholarly journals) to link their resources into AMEEL as a portal for scholarly Middle Eastern information. Partners include the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, and the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek in Halle, Germany, as well as several publishers and U.S. libraries. Tishreen University (Syria), Balamand University, and American University in Beirut (Lebanon) are early partners in the document delivery parts of this effort.

Middle East Librarians Association (MELA)

The purpose of the Middle East Librarians' Association is to facilitate communication among members through meetings and publications; to improve the quality of area librarianship through the development of standards for the profession and education of Middle East library specialists; to compile and disseminate information concerning Middle East libraries and collections and to represent the judgment of the members in matters affecting them; to encourage cooperation among members and Middle East libraries, especially in the acquisition of materials and the development of bibliographic control; to cooperate with other library and area organizations in projects of mutual concern and benefit; to promote research in and development of indexing and automated techniques as applied to Middle East materials.