Present: Meryle Gaston (University of California, Santa Barbara), William Kopycki (University of Pennsylvania), Christopher Murphy (Library of Congress), John Eilts (Stanford University), David Hirsch (University of California, Los Angeles), Jonathan Rodgers (University of Michigan), Michael Hopper (Harvard University), Shayee Khanaka (University of California, Berkeley), Simon Samoeil (Yale), Elizabeth Darocha Berenz (CRL), James Simon (CRL)

I. Minutes of the Summer 2005 meeting Cambridge are accepted after corrections

II. News from the members of the committee:

UCSB (M. Gaston): no change from summer meeting

U.Penn (W. Kopycki): religious demographics web resource is now live as of 14 Nov. Area Studies at Penn is to form itself as a unit in library.

U.Michigan (J. Rodgers): First selection of out-of-copyright materials are now available in Google Print.

Library of Congress (C. Murphy): not much change from the report submitted at the last summer meeting: There was a formal opening ceremony featuring James Billington for the Ancient Manuscripts from the Desert Libraries of Timbuktu online exhibition
Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the historic journal, is the first received (and more will follow) from Dar al-Kutub.
Iran trip report has not yet been released.
There will be a return trip by Mohammad Kazem Mousavi Bojnourdi, director of the National Library and Archives of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
More Karmanli and Armeno-Turkish materials have been purchased by Levon Avdoyan and C. Murphy.
No more new newspapers will be catalogued because the cataloguer has been re-assigned to process other materials and will retire after 30 years.

UC-Berkeley (S. Khanaka): new Arabic cataloguer has started work, but there are still negotiations regarding the Africana position; there is a Title VI funded Kurdish language teaching position

Stanford (J. Eilts): microfilming Hoover materials newspapers has encountered vendor problems. Stanford will compile a list of titles with holdings information to the MEMP email group to which others can holdings to submit collectively to MEMP as a proposed project.
There will be a Hewlett Foundation funded conference in Alexandria on digitization: Digitization of Arabic Language Books Workshop and Conference, 21 to 25 February 2006, in collaboration with Stanford University and Yale University
A new curatorial assistant at Stanford has been hired

UCLA (D. Hirsch): Arabic cataloguer, Kristen Wilson, will start in July
A glossy newsletter from UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, Intersections, is announced.
Sobh-i Iran (Sobhe Iran – http://www.sobhiran.com/) holdings generates discussion.

Harvard (M. Hopper): Iraqi newspapers status report: all holdings have been entered and series title records created for the collection of Post-Saddam Iraqi Newspapers. They number 100 or more titles with holdings including a range from a few issues to many. They are primarily Arabic, but there are still Kurdish titles to process. The Arabic cataloguer has almost finished processing the serials backlog.
Iranian oral history project to be digitized with a completion expected in the Spring.
A video tape has been produced at Harvard documenting those who had a part in building the Judaica collection.

CRL Report: Global Resources Network (GRN) has been transferred to CRL after board approval. The transition year focuses on long term strategy and identifying funding as it is being developed. J. Simon is new director of the GRN. Elizabeth Darocha Berenz [note: who is departing the Global Resources Network and CRL May 2006] also on staff and will come to MEMP meeting in place of James Simon.
A new project is in the offing for French and francophone resources (see GRN Web site for details. Francophone North African countries should also be involved.
Noted: a problem of availability of French dissertation, as distribution method changed.

III. Discussion of the general membership meeting agenda:
The proposed agenda is approved.

IV. Nominating committee report:
W. Kopycki and M. Gaston have formed a ballot. The names include three incumbents (Khanaka, Rodgers, Hirsch) and two additional candidates ( M. al-Farouque and P. Magierski)
The total thus would be 5 candidates, yielding three successful candidates.

V. Filming Proposals:
• Afghan News (Magierski)
• Kayhan Farhangi, Kiyan, Rah-i naw, Aftab magazine, Jami'ah, Subh-i imruz (Kamaly)
• Mu'tamar (revised proposal) (Hopper)
• New York Public Iranian Opposition Pamphlets (Hopper/Eilts)
• al-Quds al-`Arabi (revised proposal) (Simon)
• Subh-i iran (LA) (revised proposal) (Hirsch)
• Other Proposals

Discussion notes:
Afghan News: are there LC holding on fiche? C. Murphy will look into it; Islamabad Office might have picked it up
C. Murphy will get back to D. Hirsch and CRL about holdings other? Others? Berkeley? UCLA? The proposal was approved.

Kayhan Fanhangi, et al: There is no further news about holdings from questions raised last summer. The Committee should ask for exact holding from Kamaly. The proposal can be approved after submission of exact holdings

Lahib al-Ma`rakah and Sawt al-Ma`rakah were approved last summer.

Mu’tamar: M. Hopper notes that the costs have risen from the original proposal due to extensive additional holdings from Harvard. The question is raised whether this title might be included by Cairo Office to send to Delhi to film. The Committee will ask J. Gentner who is here [at MELA]. The proposal will be postponed until it is determined if Delhi will film.

al-Quds al-Arabi: much is missing, but Simon has managed to collect much that no one else can secure. It is asked, will the British Library get? But the BL will not send to us to film, as they will do it.
The BL might be able to fill in missing issues.
Would the Institute for Palestine Studies have some of the needed issues?
The committee decided to look around to find more issues and ask the BL to film if we could not fill in gaps. The BL receives it on legal deposit.
J. Simon will get a estimate from the BL, in the meantime the proposal will be postponed.

Sobh-i Iran: For filming, approval from editor will be needed. It is suggested that the California Newspaper Project might consider it. Table this one too.

Iranian opposition pamphlets: Michael discussed a proposal to film holdings from NYPL; J. Eilts has more at Hoover. It will cost $2000 to film these just NYPL’s holdings, 156 titles.
It is asked how much has already been catalogued? J. Eilts assistant will undertake a search to locate additional material.
Additionally, we can add other titles that are held by MEMP members.
The Committee decided to wait to approve after determining what has been catalogued, and whether to employ full cataloguing or collection level cataloguing.
We shall poll members at the general membership meeting tomorrow. Additionally, we should check Behn’s Iranian opposition to the Shah materials.

VI. Approved projects and continuing (J Simon) (see list distributed.)

Beirut Times/al-Ittihad: acquiring film; D. Hirsch was contacted by the editor, and older issues were discarded, but Sharbil al-Radi will send some issues

Iranian Opposition II: call for more issues

Iraq al-Hurr: BL has missing issues, and we could commission filming if desired. Earlier issues have been filmed already (NYPL).

Lahib and Sawt al-Ma`rakah: no additional holdings at LC

Nawbahar: Hard copy is missing in UCLA catalogue department; Penn has some (one bound vol.) which can be sent to CRL.

Al-Samir: 1929–1959 filmed; There missing issues in our holdings (see MEMP website for details). Solicit additional issues
We might be advised to market it for sale beyond MEMP and MELA. (see Encyclopaedia of Arabic Literature article by Meisami for description.)

Turkish newspapers: in process.

Ufuq al-Arabi: UCLA holdings found, will be sent to CRL.

VII. Newspaper survey (M. Hopper)
Such a survey of holdings might proceed under MEMP or MELA more generally.
Survey instructions and questions need to be crafted.
Then we should conduct the survey and post the results on web at CRL MEMP.
LC films all newspapers acquired, but there is a backlog of materials to be filmed in New Delhi.
The possibility of a newspaper holdings survey should be presented to the whole membership.
It will cover all languages and all countries covered by MEMP member libraries, and CRL will coordinate and collect the data.
It is agreed that the survey will be distributed to members in January 2006 with 2 month deadline.

VIII. Other Business

Discussion of purchase of materials for filming, but there are budgetary considerations. It is decided to continue on a case by case basis.

American University in Beirut has a collections of Arabic newspapers from all over, but announced that it did not want to sell them, but preferred to set up an exchange with the University of Virginia.
It is asked if MEMP might likewise exchange films for films.
D. Hirsch will approach AUB about this exchange possibility.

al-Waqa`i al-Kiridiyah [?], a Crete Ottoman Turkish Greek newspaper published in the 1830's under Egyptian occupation is discussed.

CRL ballots the year contained nothing of interest to MELA/MEMP

NEH grant proposal written by CRL for digitizing Iraq journals has been submitted (submitted under the Special Opportunity for Iraq for digitization of Iraqi periodicals–Note: not accepted)

The political web archiving site now links about 100 web sites. Call to submit to CRL pilot project to harvest and archive political web site.
David will submit a paragraph to editor for the MELA Notes article (published as David G. Hirsch, et al. Center for Research Libraries Middle East Political Website Archiving Pilot Project in MELA Notes 78).
Cataloguing information is being added to harvested sites at CRL.
The is a call for volunteers to catalogue with the few dublin core meta data fields.
Web crawlers are sent out to fetch the sites which deal with the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, etc.

The question is raised concerning the digitization of the Middle East in Microform: Is it obsolete anyway. No.

Arabic OCR discussion ensued.
Should MEMP buy Verus [http://www.novodynamics.com/products/verus.html], the Arabic OCR program now? No. We should wait until it is proven effective.

Question: Should there be a MEMP membership dues increase? Or more members? Discussion of how to proceed: eventually to $600, $675, $750 over three years?

The meeting adjourned at 21:32.