Yale University Library receives NEH grant for Arabic materials

NEH Funds Preservation of Arabic Collection at Yale Library

The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a $300,000
grant to Yale Library for preservation of its Salisbury Collection
Spring of 2005. The Library has just completed the first year of
this two-year grant to preserve and improve access to this
collection.

The Salisbury Collection at Yale began in 1870 with a gift from
Edward Elbridge Salisbury, the first professor of Arabic Languages
and Culture at Yale College.  It has grown over the years into a
comprehensive collection of foundational works on Islamic law,
history, religion, science, mathematics and poetry, along with a
large collection of European imprints that document European
scholars' first systematic study of Arab religions, language and
cultures.

Today, the Salisbury Collection consists of approximately 16,000
items and forms the core of the Library's Near East Collection of
over 400,000 volumes supporting Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.
In addition to providing a wealth of information for scholars, the
Near East Collection, and in particular the Salisbury Collection,
directly supports the teaching of courses from the Yale Program in
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies.  According to Simon Samoeil,
curator of the Near East Collection at Yale Library, "The project
will enable us to make the collection more accessible to a wider
audience through microfilming and other preservation activities. We
are delighted to be able to conserve this collection for use by
present and future generations."

For more information about the Near East Collection at Yale,
contact:

    Simon Samoeil
    Near East Collection
    Simon.samoeil [at] yale__edu

For more information about the preservation project, contact:

    Roberta Pilette, Principal Investigator
    Head of Preservation
    Yale University
    Sterling Memorial Library
    PO Box 208240
    130 Wall Street
    New Haven CT 06520-8240
    roberta.pilette [at] yale__edu


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 20:1
                  Distributed: Saturday, June 24, 2006
                        Message Id: cdl-20-1-005
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