African Collection: Yale University Library

come to my webinar! i will be speaking on Yale collection items i have selected for the current exhibit at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, "Revisiting the Past--Imagining the Future," including a daguerreotype of Omar ibn Said and a letter written by him in Arabic, ca. 1819:

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Mondays at Beinecke: Revisiting the Past – Imagining the Future with Roberta L. Dougherty, Librarian for Middle East Studies. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the... A talk in conjunction with the Beinecke Library building-wide exhibition, "Revisiting the Past—Imagining the Future," on view through July 9. Roberta L. Dougherty, Librarian for Middle East Studies, will discuss some of the items she selected for the exhibition. This exhibition features books, man...

this is one of my favorite items in our collection of Islamic MSS, Landberg MSS 365, a 17th-century encyclopedia of the Nile of unknown authorship. now on display in our new exhibition space in Sterling, along with other choice items from the collection! this image is a map of the Nile, showing its source (at the top of the map in this "south-up" rendition) in the legendary Mountains of the Moon, now claimed by Uganda to be its Ruwenzori mountain range.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcnoYZyLJuR/

These two pages are from a brief encyclopedia that presents all the information about the Nile River known to the Arabic-speaking population of Egypt as of the fifteenth century. According to this map, the river’s source is in the legendary Mountains of the Moon (indicated by the scalloped shapes at top). Geographical features are depicted schematically, including the central oblong shape that marks Lake Victoria, and important cities are shown in their relative locations. This “south-up” map orientation reflects centuries-old practices of Chinese and Arab mapmakers, although in more recent times it has also been used as a political statement. The manuscript came to Yale in 1900, the gift of a wealthy benefactor, as part of the purchase of the collection of the Swedish Arabist and manuscripts dealer Count Carlo Landberg (1848-1924). As Roberta Dougherty, Librarian for Middle East Studies, points out, Yale’s collection of manuscripts from the Islamic world is the third largest in this hemisphere (more than 4,200 items). Image: Creator unknown. Dhikr kalām al-nās fī manba‘ al-Nīl wa-makhrajihi wa-ziyādatih (What people say about the source of the Nile, its outlet, and its increase), 1655. Manuscript volume (Landberg MSS 365) Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library From Sterling Library’s new Hanke Exhibition Gallery inaugural exhibition Points of Contact, Points of View. Librarians and curators have selected from the library's special collections more than 60 unique documents, books, objects, and images that document human experience across time and culture. Through August 14, 2022 in SML, ground floor. #SpecialCollections @YaleLibrary #exhibitions #sterlinglibrary @yale @yaleuniversity @beineckeearlybooks @beineckelibrary @yale_arabs https://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/3819553

happy National Library Workers Day 2022! is a day for library staff, users, administrators and Friends groups to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers. https://ala-apa.org/nlwd/