Middle East Studies

Middle East and Islamic Studies Librarian

Profile Photo
Magda El-Sherbini
Contact:
305F Thompson Library, 1858 Neil Ave, Columbus, OH 43210
614-247-7456
Website

Welcome!

How can we help you?

The Middle East Studies (MES) collection at the Ohio State University Library contains over 150,000 books on the history and culture of the Middle East and North Africa from the 7th century A.D. to the present; on the religion of Islam throughout the world; and on Arabic, Persian and Turkish languages and literatures. The bulk of this collection is at Thompson library, but we are responsible for the Middle East portion of collections in Fine Arts, Business, Cartoon, and other libraries on campus. Many other books on the Middle East particularly in Western languages, are available through OhioLink.

MES is also responsible for the small Hindi and Urdu Collections at OSU Libraries. We do not actively collect in these languages but are building a small reading collection to aid in language instruction. MES has a non-circulating reference collection in the Grand Reading Room at the Thompson Library. This is just a small part of the total Middle East collection. This collection contains the specialized encyclopedias, dictionaries and bibliographic tools, in Western and vernacular languages, necessary for the study of the Middle East, its languages and cultures and Islamic Studies.  Increasingly, reference sources are available in electronic format. We also subscribe to academic and popular journals from and about the Middle East. Current issues are in the Periodical section of the Thompson Library. Consult the OSU Library Catalog for the location of older issues.

Middle East Studies Search Tips

When searching for materials in Middle Eastern languages, you can either search using vernacular (Persian, Arabic, Turkish, etc.) or by using romanized characters. Keep in mind that you may not get all possible results by using vernacular and that you must use the Library of Congress transliteration system: 

ALA-LA Romanization Tables 

This is the system used in US and UK Libraries.

IJMES Translation and Transliteration Guide

Encyclopedia of Islam/Brill Transliteration Guide

Since the Encyclopedia of islam was designed as an Anglo-French Project, its transliteration was designed to serve both languages and has retained many unique features

Middle East Studies Collection at OSU

Search Catalogs

 
 

What is this searching? The OSU Library Catalog searches for print, electronic and other formats in the OSU Libraries collections. More Search Options >>

 
 

What is this searching? The OhioLINK catalog allows searching and requesting of scholarly materials located in the 90+ college and university member libraries around Ohio, plus the State Library of Ohio. More Search Options >>

 
 

What is this searching? WorldCat@OSU searches across 7 key databases for books, articles, and more. More Search Options >>

What is this searching? The SearchOhio Catalog allows searching and requesting of popular books, DVDs, CDs and other materials from 20+ public library systems throughout the state of Ohio. More Search Options >>

More Middle East Libraries

Search Knowledge Bank

Advanced Search

Browse the Knowledge Bank by Communities & Collections
Or Go to the Knowledge Bank