Middle Eastern Studies Library

To support the University’s teaching and research mission and to facilitate academic activities of the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, as well as other centers and departments that offer courses related to Middle East and the Islamic world, the Library has been developing an excellent collection of printed and digital resources. Currently the Collection houses approximately 55,000 volumes of Arabic, 11,000 volumes of Persian and several hundred volumes of other Middle Eastern language materials. These are in addition to Western language materials that are housed in the main and departmental libraries. Materials in Urdu and other Indic languages are part of the South Asian Collection. Those in Turkish and Hebrew are housed in related subject specialized libraries. The Collection covers a wide range of subject areas including, but not limited to, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, Law, Agriculture, Medicine, Women's Studies. The strength of the collection, however, is in the areas of Arabic/Persian language and literature, Middle Eastern history (both modern and medieval), religious tradition of Islam, politics and government in the Middle East, social studies, and Islamic law.

South Asian Studies Library

The University Library was one of the first subscribers to the Library of Congress foreign acquisitions program for South Asia and has been actively collecting South Asian materials since 1963.The collection comprises of excellent printed and electronic resources that support teaching and research in South Asian Studies, which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives, and Bhutan. The primary focus of the South Asian Collection is on the humanities and social sciences. As a result the South Asian collection is strong in the areas of Linguistics, Literature, Geography, History, Indology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Cultures, Societies and Gender Studies. The South Asian Collection contains materials in both English and vernacular languages of South Asia, including the 23 languages of India. Some of the language materials included in the collection are: Assamese, Bengali, Burmese, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Pali, Prakrit, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. Today the South Asian Collection is comprised of over 210,000 volumes. In addition to its many books and journals, the library has a growing collection of Indian popular media, especially films. The library also has the most comprehensive collection of Indian comics and graphic novels in North America. In addition to providing access to South Asian materials, the library also provides reference and instruction services to support South Asian Studies teaching and research.