MELA Business Meeting

Nov. 17th, 2001

Hyatt Regency Embarcadero Hotel, San Francisco, California

MELA Members in Attendance

Midhat Abraham, Muhammad Al-Faruque, Basima Bezirgan, Joan Biella, Leonard Chiarelli, Paul Crego, Saad Dagher, Saeed Damadi, Roberta Dougherty, John Eilts, Shahira El Sawy, George Fawzi, Salwa Ferahian, Christof Galli, Meryle Gaston, Janet Heineck, David Hirsch, Michael Hopper, Edward Jajko, Robert Johnston, Shayee Khanaka, Fawzi Khoury, Wiliam Kopycki, Peter Kraus, Connie Lamb, Suad Muhammad-Gamal, Laila Mulgaokar, Christopher Murphy, Walter Oller, Andras Riedlmayer, Jonathan Rodgers, Simon Samoeil, Rachel Simon, Mary St. Germain, Dona Straley, Frank Unlandherm, James Weinberger, M. Lesley Wilkins, and Hayrettin Yucesoy.

Minutes

The 2001 Annual Meeting of the Middle East Librarians Association convened at at 9:00 a.m., Saturday, November 17, in the Seacliff C Room at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero Hotel in San Francisco, California. President Roberta Dougherty introduced the officers and asked all those present, first-time as well as regular attendees, to introduce themselves.

Old Business

It was moved by Basima Bezirgan, and seconded by Andras Riedlmayer, to accept the 2000 Meeting Minutes and Secretary-Treasurer's Report as published in MELA Notes number 71-72 (Fall 2000-Spring 2001), and as such, the minutes were accepted.

Janet Heineck read the Treasurer's report for the membership year just concluded. [The complete report can be found at the end of this report (below) in this issue of MELA Notes .] A motion to accept the report as read was introduced, seconded, and passed.

Jonathan Rodgers read the MELA Notes Editor's Report. He described the contents and production of the current issue, no. 71-72 and announced that this issue has been posted on the MELA website at http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/MELANotes7172/MELANotes7172.html. The Editor offered an update for the past year of his and John Eilts' project to digitize all past issues of MELA Notes and to place them on the MELA website.

President Roberta Dougherty praised the successful efforts of Rachel Simon, MELA Notes Book Review Editor, to collect reviews from those who had held books for extended periods without submitting the reviews. Rachel questioned whether it is worthwhile to continue even publishing book reviews in MELA Notes , when often reviews appear only years after the books' publication dates or even as books are not returned to her for redistribution by reviewers who after a long time do not produce reviews. She asked for advice from the group in this matter. Consensus was that the reviews are valuable and should continue, but perhaps timeliness of book reviews is not so critical, because most research libraries' will have had the books on the shelves long before the reviews appear in MELA Notes anyway. Several possible actions to encourage holdouts to complete reviews were discussed, and it was agreed that excessively tardy reviewers should not be sent books for review again, and in extreme cases, that the Editor could make their names known to the membership. Since publishers demand copies of reviews of their titles, it was suggested that the Editor should just record the titles of unreviewed books as received. It agreed that eliminating the book review section would not solve the problem. Roberta Dougherty repeated her appreciation of Rachel Simon's work in this occasionally vexing but always valued effort in behalf of the organization.

A motion by Andras Riedlmayer to accept the Editor's report was seconded by Shayee Khanaka and passed.

New Business

Gunther Meyer was called upon and made a special announcement concerning the upcoming First World Congress of Middle East Studies planned for September 8 through 13, 2002 at the University of Mainz. More than two thousand participants are expected to attend. All MELA members were encouraged to consider attending the Congress.

The Bylaws amendment proposal, introduced by Ed Jajko at last year's meeting in Orlando, was described in fuller detail by him at this meeting. The text of the proposed Bylaws changes is as follows, to quote from last's years minutes: ``... The first is that the Vice-President/Program Chair be retained on the Executive Board for one year as `Past Vice-President.' This provision would effectively reward the out-going Vice-President for the hard work of preparing the program for the just-completed annual meeting, and the executive board would take advantage of that person's experience in planning future meetings. The second is that Executive Board meetings conducted electronically be regarded as equally valid as those conducted in person." Ed added an additional proposal at this meeting, namely, that there be created a secure, i.e. non-electronic, text of the MELA Bylaws. Ed moved, and it was passed, that Ed and Dona Straley will constitute a committee to consider the proposed Bylaws amendments and submit a report at next year's meeting.

Election of New Officers

Ed Jajko made a motion, which was seconded and passed, to set aside on this occasion the current Bylaws that limit the Editor's service to two successive three-year terms in order to permit Jonathan to serve a third successive term as Editor, both because there are no other candidates and because he is willing to continue service. MELA will continue to benefit from the Editor's technical skills and generous hard work in the editorial and physical production of MELA Notes .

MELA's new officers are David Hirsch, President 2001-2003; Roberta Dougherty, Past President 2001-2003; Joan Biella, Vice-President/Program Chair 2001-2002; Janet Heineck, Secretary-Treasurer 2001-2003; Jonathan Rodgers, Editor 2001-2003; Meryle Gaston, Member-at-Large 2001-2003; Michael Hopper, Member-at-Large 2000-2002. Ali Houissa continues as capable manager of MELANET and webmaster.

David Hirsch, the program planner of the day's meeting, publicly acknowledged and thanked the contributors (Leila Books, Sulaiman's Bookshop, Dar Mahjar, RLG) who helped cover some of the meeting's expenses. He announced that there would be a MELA dinner at the Helmand Afghani restaurant after the MECAP meeting, at about 7:30 or 7:45 that evening, at the price of $31.00, all included. Roberta thanked David for the effective and hard work he undertook locally with the hotel and and in ssembling the participants for the afternoon's program.

Chris Murphy reported on acquisitions at the Library of Congress during the past year. The Near East Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division was kept busy since the events of September 11 as it addressed requests from US government agencies for information. The section also began an assessment of collection security. Cataloging output has increased. The section purchased the British Library collection of Arabic manuscripts on microfiche. Chris travelled in April and May to Cairo, Turkey, and Sweden, the latter for emigré publications. Other section staff made acquisitions trips as well.

Joan Biella presented the LC Cataloging Report prepared by Sarah Ozturk, head of LC's Middle East/North Africa Cataloging Team. What follows is, with only minor changes, the report Joan provided to the MELA Executive Board after the meeting:

``In fiscal year 2000, the Regional and Cooperative Cataloging Division of the Library of Congress cleared over 9,400 monographs and 200 serials in Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Perisan, Turkish, and in Western languages dealing with the Middle East. An additional 600-plus items were covered by collection-level records in Arabic and Turkish. A great deal of staff time, although much less than last year, continued to be spent on training and review. There was a sizable increase in subject development work. The handout [distributed at the meeting] lists new subject headings and new class numbers which may be of interest. We lost three staff members this year: senior cataloger Iklil Ibrahim retired in February after thirty-three years at LC; senior cataloger Robin Dougherty resigned in August; and Library Aide Briana Browne accepted a position elsewhere in LC. Esra Akin, of Ohio State, and Michael Chyet, formerly of the Voice of America, joined the Middle East/North Africa Team on contracts for minimal-level cataloging of Turkish and Arabic, respectively. Considerable progress has been made in the development of the KBP classification schedule for Islamic Law. [Lesley Wilkins mentioned that the KBP schedule deveopment has grown to sixty pages.] This has been a very successful year, in spite of loss of staff. Next year we expect to be able to do even more subject development and, barring any unexpected budget changes, we hope to post two more cataloger positions."

Robin Dougherty reviewed progress on MELA projects identified in last year's survey. The George Atiyeh Prize Committee successfully established award guidelines, which are on the MELA website at http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/atiyehprize.html. Dona Straley described the history of the award idea and named this year's two awardees: William Kopycki and Christine Dykgraaf. [Christine Dykgraaf was unable to attend the meeting. Her prize money has been returned to the treasury.] Midhat Abraham suggested that there be a way that members could identify and thus acknowledge contributions to the George Atiyeh Prize fund. After some discussion, it was generally agreed that current MELA funds are more than sufficient to support the cash prize awards and that contributions, beyond regular payments of dues, are not necessary for the continued funding of the prize.

The MELA-sponsored MESA panels have turned out to be a successful enterprise, with all four proposed panels to date having been accepted by MESA and well-attended. MELA's continuing concern for establishing a MELA-sponsored project to inventory and review Middle East-related websites has been already been partially realized by Lutz Wiederhold and Sibylle Wegener of the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle, in the Middle East Virtual Library (MENALIB) website at http://ssgdoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/vlib/html/index.html.

Announcements

There will be a special MESA panel on the events of September 11 on Sunday, November 18, at 1:30 pm.

The MESA 2002 meeting will be November 23 through 26 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, DC. The MESA 2003 meeting will be November 6 through 9 at the Hilton Anchorage and Egan Convention Center, Anchorage, Alaska.

Michael Hopper, Harvard College Library, announced openings for a full-time Middle Eastern Librarian (Arabic) and a part-time Middle Eastern Librarian.

Roberta Dougherty announced her paper ``Let's Get Critical: The Egyptian Musical Film" and invited all to attend the panel ``Workers, Singers, Mayhem and Murder: Egyptian Cinematic Realisms" Sunday, November 18, 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Lesley Wilkins reported on her attendance at MELCOM International's 23^rd International Conference, which met at the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, May 28-30, 2001. Melcom International's 24^th annual Conference will take place in Paris from Monday May 27 to Wednesday May 29, 2002. The lecture sessions will be given in the new building of Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in the 13^th arrondissement of Paris. Lesley encouraged everyone who is able to attend these very interesting conferences.

David Hirsch reported on his attendance at the Sharjah World Book Fair, November 4-13, and at the Twelfth Annual Conference of the Arab Federation for Libraries and Information at the University of Sharjah, November 5-8, 2001. David was the only non-Arab attendee; the others were from everywhere in the Arab world. Next year's conference will be held in Beirut in the summer or fall of 2002.

The business meeting ended a little before noon. It was followed in the afternoon by an excellent program.

Treasurer's Report, November 17, 2001

INCOME
Dues, subscriptions,Interest income	$5,305.00
Mailing list sales & ads)	$200.00
TOTAL	$5,505.00
EXPENDITURES
Postage and Supplies	$468.71
MESA 2001 meeting room rental	$150.00
MESA 2001 meeting catering	$2,686.29
Photocopying	$21.76
Petty cash for change at meeting	$400.00
MESA 2000 meeting room rental	$158.46
Faxon cancellation refund	$30.00
George Atiyeh Prize awards (2)	$676.00
MELA Notes 71-72 (printing)	$130.00
TOTAL	$4,721.22
Checking account beginning balance November 14, 2001	$8,361.58
Savings account balance November 14, 2001	$3,622.01

Respectfully submitted,

Janet Heineck

Secretary-Treasurer