Middle East Studies: Primary and Web Resources

Portland State University Special Collections

Special Collections is home to over 5,500 rare, unique or historically significant items dating from the 15th century to the present and encompassing a broad range of formats including books, journals, manuscripts, papers and records, photographs, maps, comic books, audio-visual material, realia and ephemera.

Middle East Studies Association
"A non-political association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom."

• Access to Mideast and Islamic Resources (AMIR): A blog that is assembling and distributing information on open access material relating to the Middle East.
• AMEEL: is a Web-based portal and a digital collection of information for the study of the Middle East, including its history, culture, development and contemporary face.
•  Ancient World Online: Moderated by Charles Ellwood Jones, The primary focus of the blog will be notice and comment on open access material relating to the ancient world, but I will also include other kinds of networked information as it comes available.
• Arab Media & Society: Arab Media & Society is the primary reference for understanding the role of media in shaping Arab societies and the broader Muslim world. The impact of the pan-Arab satellite revolution is today felt at every level of Arab society. Arab Media & Society covers all forms of media and their interaction with society-at-large, from politics and business to culture and religion, as well as the way in which Arab media change resonates in the broader Muslim world.
• ArchNet Digital Library: ArchNet is an international online community for architects, planners, urban designers, landscape architects, conservationists, and scholars, with a focus on Muslim cultures and civilisations.
• Directory of Free Arab Journals: This directory collects all refereed scholarly open access, full texts e- journals in all subject areas, issued by Arab universities and academic institution, in Arabic, English & French languages.
• Al-Hakawati.net al-Hakawati is the Arabic word for "storyteller." It tells the story of Arab heritage and civilization.
• Jadaliyya's Cities Guide: The Cities Page is a Jadaliyya platform promoting critical understandings and investigations of urban life and space, beyond the dominant formal and physical narration on cities.
• Menalib: (Middle East Virtual Library) is an information portal for Middle East, North African, and Islamic Studies. It provides access to electronic fulltext materials or electronic bibliographical records of printed materials and manuscripts.
• Middle East Studies Internet Resources at Columbia University: An on-going compilation of electronic bibliographic resources and research materials on the Middle East and North Africa available on the Internet, created by the Middle East Studies Department of Columbia University Libraries. Resources are organized by region, country and subject.
• The Medieval Review: Since 1993, The Medieval Review (TMR; formerly the Bryn Mawr Medieval Review) has been publishing reviews of current work in all areas of Medieval Studies, a field it interprets as broadly as possible. The electronic medium allows for very rapid publication of reviews, and provides a computer searchable archive of past reviews, both of which are of great utility to scholars and students around the world.
• The Middle East, 1916-2001: a documentary record: Very well organized and simply presented, this Web site is part of the Yale Law School's Avalon Project (CH, Sup'05, 42Sup-0500), an extensive historical and legal document collection. The site is primarily aimed at students of international law, history, and political science, but the resources would certainly be useful to anyone interested in examining the Middle East through government documents, transcripts of government leaders' speeches, and UN resolutions.
• Royal Asiatic Society Digital Library: Access to some of the Society's historic collections. The site features archives, manuscripts, artwork, photographs, and more, from a variety of Asian cultures, as well as materials showing some of the ways Europeans have responded to Asia over the centuries. 
• World Digital Library: Middle East and North Africa.