The 97th meeting of MELCOM (UK), hosted at Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation in London, on Tuesday, 20th November 2018
MELCOM meetings aim to provide a forum for the exchange of information and ideas between institutions and persons in the UK, involved in collecting, organising and making available material on the Middle East, as well as developing and sharing expertise in the technical aspects of Middle East librarianship and bibliography. Representatives of the Library department at Al-Furqān regularly participate in MELCOM meetings.
This meeting was attended by the subject librarians of the main institutions in the UK housing North African and Middle Eastern Collections, including: Yasmin Faghihi (Cambridge University Library, Cambridge), Lydia Wright (Bodleian Library, Oxford), Rihana Sulaiman (Endangered Archives Programme - British Library, London), Dominique Akhoun-Schwarb (SOAS, London), Waseem Farooq (Agha Khan University, London), and, representing the Foundation, Celeste Gianni and Karima Benaicha.
The meeting was structured into three sessions: a business meeting, followed by the reports from institutions and a discussion on the forthcoming MELCOM International and MELCOM UK meetings, including the Pearson Memorial Lecture.
Since Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation was the host of this event, Al-Furqān Library staff had the opportunity to showcase the new layout of the library, completed in September 2018, and to present the latest activities and publications from the Foundation.