The Princeton University Near East Collections contain some 232,000 printed books and some 15,000 manuscripts in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish, and constitute one of the major assemblages of Near Eastern research materials in the United States. Most extensive are the Arabic holdings with over 112,000 printed books and 12,000 manuscripts—a manuscript collection unmatched in any other U.S. library.

There are, in addition, approximately 40,700 Persian, 35,500 Turkish and Ottoman, and 43,900 modern and Rabbinic Hebrew printed books, together with some 2,000 Persian and 1,000 Ottoman manuscripts, and a small collection of Ottoman documents.

All areas of classical Islamic civilization are well represented, with an emphasis on literary, historical, legal and religious texts. The collections are also strong in contemporary Near Eastern publications. Current books and periodicals are acquired on a regular basis from all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as are major newspapers. All told, the Library receives approximately 2,000 serial publications relating to the Near East in Near Eastern and Western languages.

The Near East Collections are housed in Firestone Library. A Near East Study Room containing reference and other basic works is on B-Floor of Firestone Library. The Islamic Manuscripts Collection may be found in the Manuscripts Division of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, also located in Firestone Library.


Staff

There are, at the present time, ten full-time staff members who work on the Near East Collections. These include Dr. James W. Weinberger, the Curator of the Near East Collections, Azar Ashraf, the Special Collections Assistant, and Nancy Pressman-Levy, the Hebrew language selector.

Other Resources

Al-Khazina: The Treasury
Near Eastern Studies Resources
Firestone Library
PUL History Resources