MIDDLE EAST LIBRARIANS ASSOCIATION NUMBER 47 SPRING, 1989 TAOLE OF CONTENTS Editor.. ., Note 2 ASSOClA'I ION NEWS Fr°"' ttHt President 3 Librarian of Congress responds to HELA GENERAL NEWS Future Conferences Electronic Addr11sses 7 ARTICLES h1la111 in Canada by Salwa Ferahian B Iraq-Iran Wart a Bibliographical Project by J. Anthony Gardner 14 Conte111porary Pt!r11ian Press in E1till! by Hasan Javadi and Abazar Sepehri lB A Lone Bibliographer at her PC by Priscilla H. Ro~rts 7.b Increa sing Productivity and Public Satisfaction with Middle East and Judaic Library Services through Use of a Personal Co111puter by Oona S. Straley and A111non Zipin 33 BOO!< REVIEW !!I.~irat al-ma•3rif Ta ~hayyu~ reviewed by Abaiar Sepehri :Sb POSITIONS AVAILABLE Princeton Univers ity 38 Sultan Daboos University 39 University of Chicago '10 lntifatlah Publication,,. Available Inside Back Cover l u raeli Fon!ign Relations Documents AvaUablll! Inside Back Cover MH n NIJIHi IU!IN U.U1'1 J410 MIDDLE EAST LIBRARIANS ASSOCIATION EDWARD A. JAJKO PresidP-nt 1989 Moover Ins ti tut ion MEAYLE GASTON Vice-Pr esident & NeH York University Progral'I Chair 1?89 JAMES WEINBERGER Secretary- P~inceta11 ~liver·sity ' Treasurer 1987- 1989 BRENDA E. BICKETT Editor 1900-1990 Georgetown University !:l('ll\ Not•• I• publislurd three ti,.es a year, in ,.inter, "'Pring, and fal I. It i• distributed to ...,,,.bers of the Association and to 11onll'l"'"h"'r ••lh"<: r l born1. M•.,hur•hl11 1h1e11 of US$10.00 for North Afllerican addresses or IJUtl:l.00 fut' •do:Jres!le!& outside North AMerica bring the ~and ..,.' ul:hotr- 111•il !r111•· Bub11criptions are USSl0.00 lUSSl:l.OO outside No rth l'IMlft Ar:al 1nu t.alwlldlit' year, or USS3.00 per issue for 111ost back 11u111hat •, l\ddr••• rnrr••JllHUletir• r11q,11nll11Q •11l111criptioms, dues, or "''"'"b"r""hip In fur111111tiun hll .J•lll!'!!t M• l11l11o·o•r 1 B•cr•tary-Treasurer MELA, l'rtnec•lun llf1iv•r•ily l lhr.,y, lluM 1'10, Princ:•ton, NJ 08:1'10 USA. 1;1H1lf lllt1U1111• tu U111 Ntll•A ~1111 It• ••nl ltu llr•no:Ja E . Bick11tt, l-flllm I t/U i:.ilillo9&11111 118fit., M1t11t91tl11w11 \k1t11•1•llv I ihr.u·y, P.O. llnK :11445, WHhing ton bt toou LIM, l'lll111WI :i!O'l ·ltlll . fM 11 rn>e 202- "'" Ulli. MIDDLE EAST LIBRARIANS ASSOCIATION NUMBER 47 SPRING, 1989 TASl.E OF CDNfENTS Editor· g Note 2 ASSOCIATION NEWS Fro• the Pre9ident 3 Librarian of Congress responds to MELA 4 GENERAL NEWS Future Conferenceg Electronic Addresses 7 ARTICLES Isla• in Canada by Salwa Ferahian B lr·aq-lran War: • Bibliographical Project by J. Anthony Gardner Conte•porary Persian Press in EKile by ftasan Javadi and Abaz.ar SepiPhri A Lone Biblio9rapher at her PC by Priscilla H. Roberts 26 Increasing Productivity and Public Satisfaction Mith Middle East and Jud.ale Library Services through Use of a Personal Co•put&r by Oona s. Str.aley and Amnon lipin BOOK REVIEW . Davirat al- •a•irif T.a~hayyu' revieNe d by Abazar Sepahri 36 POSITIONS AVAILABLE Princeton University 38 Sultan Qaboos University 39 University of Chicago 40 lntifadah Publicati ons Available Inside Back Cover Israeli Foreign Relations Documents Available Ins ide Back Cover MELA Notes 47. Spr,nq l98~ FflON IUE EI) I HJR Many o1 our'" members l 1st no orqan1 zat1onc1 l at f LI 1 ~l ,,,,, 111 tlH:? l"lembersh1p Roster- entrtes. lt seems tt·1al this would LH? u~;C?ftd, pa,-l1cul.arly it ane l5 look1nq for an unknown naine at a spec1f1c: 1nst1tut1on. The 1hembersh1p list ha~ previously bee1\ used pr-1mdr'"llY tor in~il1nq pur-po'5e'S, but, with ttle wonders ot word processi.ng, .it 15 no lonqer necess•rv to restrict our-selves to this. If you would like to include your position and organization 1n your 11st1ng. pledse send me the correct 1nformat1on~ dlonq with any other correct1cns. Electronic addresses are also welcome. Response to requests for contributions to l'!l;J,,£1. ~NgJ:~~~ has been eHcel l~nt. ~tawever, do not hesitate to 5end me your news. artlcles and thou9hts1 please limit your musings ta library-related matters. Longer issues can certainly be explored. Hopefully. this also 1nd1cates that a more substantial publication, such as Ed Ja1ko s sugges tlon for a Jill!Cnal..__g_f__M_!.~£1..l.g_.£.i!.il . .h!fil~ll!l.2.!l!..P.· c:ou l d be undertaken, I would be interested in your thoughts an a Journal, as well as a demonstration of support tor such a oubl1cation. Contributions Due to space llmi ta t1ons, ,.r tic Jes should be not loflger than 7 double-spaced pages, although longer works will be considered. Boak reviews uf reference works should be no lonqer tt1an 50u-l~U wards~ Alt contr1but1ons ~hould be complete and reddv for oubl1cat1on in a standard format, w1th footnotes clearly indicated. Contributions 1n WordPerfect can be sent on a 5-J/4" f loppv diskette·. ~ELA natg~ is issued three times a year {Winter, Spring, and Fal ll. Contributions should be received by January for the Winter issue. April for the Spring i ssue, and August tor the Fall issue. Please be sure to send all meeting notices well in ~dvance sa that members can be informed in a timely fashion. MELA Notes 47, Sprtng 1909 l'ESSAGE FROl1 THE PRESIDENT :Zb May 1989 Because of a miM-up tn communications, the last issue of ~~\..B..llQ!.£.!. (no. 4b, Winter 1909) included the tlPMt of my letter. to the Librarian of Congress, written on behalf of and at the direction of the MELA membership, but not Dr. Billington·s reply. His letter ifi reprinted in this i•sue, tor the benefit of a 11 MELA memberll , on whose behalf and at whose direction it was writt•n. h•ve had no further correspondtmce with Dr. 8 ii ling t on or the Library of Congre..,; , I h•v• bl!'an told that tha HELA letter to Dr. Billington ha" generated "ome comm1mt and controversy. One LC staff member telephoned me about my lett•r. We had a v•ry long conversation that was illuminating and, in diplomatic terms, frank, cordial, friendly and constructive. The conversation started out on a wary note but concludl!'d in a v ery friendl y fashion. 1 c ertainly l•arned more abo ut t he problems that impl!'de operations at LC. The letter had one totally unforese•n result, r•ported by one of our coll•agues, who informed me that his administration has seized on th• eMa~pl•s of high stati,.tics cited in the l•tter as a way of criticiting his cataloging output. I would nev•r have thought of •uch a poss)bility, and am bothered by and d••PlY regret what i s tantamount to a delib•rat• misuse of the information in the letter. I am also very surprised that non- specialist library administrators read MELA Notes, or •I•• that sor1uo tal•-b•arin9 busybody would brinQ the lett•r to their att•ntion in order to discr•dit someon• els•; which is c•rt•inly shameful dirty dealing, Wh•n we discus,.ed th• l•tter to LC in Los Ang•l•s, HELA m•mbers had various sugQ••tions for h•lping LC improve cataloging output. If w• ar• sincer• in our critici,.ms of the pres•nt system at LC and its results, and want to do somathinQ about it, it is important that w• pr••• LC to do what it •hould. On• l•tt•r of criticism, rec•iving a less than enthusiastic response f rom th• Librarian of Con9ress, who has mOr• important thinQ• on his mi nd than a tiny, disor9anizad constituency of Middle East specialists, won ' t do the Job. We n••d to or9aniz• a plan for d••ling with th• cat•loging probl•m, pr•sent it to LC, and lobby for it activ•ly and strongly . I hav• b••n thinking about such a plan, and try ing to figure out how it could work. With regard to our all working to9eth•r, in the last MELA Notes 1 called on MELA m•mbers to form sp•cial inter••t groups and to l•t me know what they are int•rested in doin9. Th• r•sponse to that call has b••n absolut•ly z•ro. As is noted above, somebody read the last issue. But no on• r•sponded to my call. OK, so ma ybe you · re not intenrs t e d in joining another Spec1•l Interest Group. But you are int•rest•d in doing i;omething about you r intractable cataloging backlog, •nd about gettinQ mo r e c ataloginQ copy from the Library of Con9ress. Now is the time to send your sugg•stions to Lucia Rath•r (with a copy tom•, p lease), o r, better, to send them to me so that I can collate and organ ize them and present them to Mrs. Rather as an official statement of the Middl• Eas t Librarians Association. Edward Jajko Pres i d•nt, HELA 4 MELA Notes 47, Spr1nq 198q LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS RESPONDS TO MELA PRESIDENT'S LETTER 2 Februar•, 1989 Dear Mr. JaJ ko, I n your letter o f 9 December 1988 you expressed concern o ver t he low cataloqtng output of the Library of Congress in Arabtc, Pers ian and Turku•h.