9 December 1997
Cambridge, UK
NCOLR 1997 Conference
Cambridge Oriental Collections
The 1997 Conference of the National Council on Orientalist Library Resources was held at Newnham College and the University Library, Cambridge, on 9 December 1997. The theme of the Conference was 'Cambridge Oriental Collections' and there twenty-eight participants attended.
By Catherine Ansorge
The morning session began with a tribute by John McIlwaine (University College, London) to the life and work of Professor Jim Pearson who died in August 1997. Jim Pearson's long career in Oriental librarianship and bibliography began in the Cambridge University Library where he worked for many years in the Oriental Department. In 1950 he became Librarian of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London where he took charge at a time of a dramatic expansion in the collections. He was a member of the Committee on the Hayter Report on the development of training in Oriental Studies in British universities which was published in 1961.
Professor Pearson was also instrumental in the foundation of professional associations for Oriental librarians including what has now become the NCOLR and in the foundation of the area Library Groups, the earliest of which was MELCOM. The first Oriental librarians' conference was held in 1967 and this later developed into a regular tradition of annual conferences. He was noted for founding the course in Asian and African bibliography at University College, London and for his publications in the field of oriental bibliography which included the Index Islamicus and other seminal works in the field.
Dr Kate Fleet, Fellow of Newnham College, then described the Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies which is housed and administered within the College. She outlined the history and development of the Centre which was established after the death, in 1985, of Dr Susan Skilliter who was lecturer in Turkish Studies at Cambridge.
Dr Raymond Allchin, former Reader in Indian archaeology at Cambridge and Trustee of the Ancient India and Iran Trust, talked about the founding and development of the Trust and its Library. The Trust developed around the core collection on Sanskrit and related Indo-Iranian studies belonging to the late Sir Harold Bailey.
Charles AyImer, the Chinese specialist in the University Library, Cambridge, gave a presentation on the Library's Chinese collections and their history. He outlined the careers of a number of important Cambridge Chinese scholars including Thomas Wade and Herbert Giles and the relevance of their efforts to the growth of the Chinese collections. He also spoke in some detail about the work of Professor Hopkins and his collection of Chinese oracle bones which is held in the University Library's collections.
During the afternoon session, Terry Barringer, Librarian of the Royal Commonwealth Society Collections, gave a lively description of its contents and of the history of the growth and development of the Library. She outlined the Library's history from its early days when it was housed in Northumberland Avenue in London and also described the problems of its recent move to the University Library in Cambridge, where it is now housed as a special collection. She emphasized the breadth and richness of its contents and also described the present state of progress in cataloguing the contents into the University Library's on-line catalogue.
The final talk was given by Dr Stefan Reif, Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, on the Genizah collection which is housed in the University Library. His presentation, which was illustrated by slides, gave a comprehensive picture of the history of the Genizah fragments from the time of their discovery in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, their subsequent transfer to Cambridge in 1898, to the conservation and research work which has since been carried out.