Donation of an Important Iranian Scholarly Collection

Parts of the Scholarly Collection Ali-Reza Rahbar, Bonn 2018

Parts of the Scholarly Collection Ali-Reza Rahbar, Bonn 2018

The University and State Library Saxony-Anhalt (ULB) with its Specialized Information Service (FID) Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Studies received an extensive donation of Persian monographs and journals in the autumn of 2018.

The collection is the private library of the Iranian-born scientist Ali-Reza Rahbar from Bonn, which has been developed over decades. The donation comprises 4,580 monographs and 25 linear metres of periodicals.

Specialists from several Universities examined the collection in advance. In their expert opinions, they emphasized the importance of these works for the research of modern Iran.

ULB’s Specialized Information Service Middle East, North Africa and Islamic Studies, with its professional and infrastructural expertise, can offer comprehensive cataloguing and a trans-regional access to this collection.

The Persian-language sources compiled with scholarly accuracy by Mr. Rahbar over a period of half a century were for the most part not re-issued or were censored after the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979. These are relevant research materials that were hardly available in Germany to this date, or have not existed at all. Making them available in digital form or via interlibrary loan represents a significant gain for Iranian Studies.

Under the direction of the subject librarian of Iranian Studies, the ULB is working on cataloguing the monographs and journals into the system of the union catalogue K10plus. Public domain titles will be digitised and made accessible in open access on the subject repository MENAdoc.