AKU-ISMC Library and Staff Profile
24 August 2007

The AKU-ISMC library aims to support the teaching needs of the Institute’s academic programmes and to build a significant and distinctive scholarly research collection on Muslim cultures and societies. Emphasis is placed on the published contributions of contemporary scholars in areas and languages of interest to the Institute.

The fundamental elements of the collection were laid down at the time of the establishment of the Institute in 2002. Within five years the library collection has grown significantly to some 10,000 volumes plus electronic resources and audio-visual materials. The collection hosts materials in a diverse array of languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Urdu, Bengali and European languages. The Institute seeks to ensure that it does not duplicate resources that are readily available at nearby academic libraries. In this way, the library serves to provide a unique resource to existing works in the field within the UK.

Since 2005, the library has been run by Librarian Stefan Seeger and Waseem Farooq (Library Administrator). During this period the library has moved to larger premises and since the summer of 2006 has been opened to accommodate students as well as researchers on request. Development of the library’s multi-script catalogue (OPAC) is ongoing and available for internal use; it is planned that the catalogue be made available from the Institute’s website in 2008.

As both library staff are members of specialised library associations for Oriental collections, in spring 2007 AKU-ISMC hosted the meetings of both the Middle East Libraries Committee UK (MELCOM) and South Asia Library Group (SAALG) at its premises. Hosting these high profile meetings was an excellent opportunity for the Institute’s staff to network with other professionals and to further raise the profile of the library in the UK and Europe.

Being an academic and research library, the library is currently not open to the general public. Its main users are AKU-ISMC students, faculty and staff; reference usage for external scholars and researcher is, however, possible through direct requests to the library. During academic term time, the Library is opened for extended hours and employs two additional part-time staff. For more information, please visit AKU-ISMC’s library pages.