Library – MEPPI

Country: Turkey
Collection Type: Cultural organisation Library Museum Research center
Collection Size: > 50,000
Period: 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints Slides (positives)
Website: http://saltonline.org/

SALT comprises an extensive library that focuses on the arts, architecture, design, urbanism, and social and economic history, as well as an archive of physical and digital documents. The archive collections of SALT Research include Contemporary Art Archives, Ottoman Bank Archive, The Archive of Architecture and Design, Italian Embassy Archive, Saint Pierre Archive, World Council of Churches Archive, The Archive of Crete, French Press in the Ottoman Empire, Maps, as well as general photographs, family archives, magazines, newspapers, coins, lists, and plans. The collections includes photographs from the 19th and 20th century related to art, design, architecture and urbanism, and social history. Photographs were acquired by donation, deposit and purchase and the collection is still expanding. Formats include film based negatives, glass negatives and positives, positive prints, digital files, Black and White images and color images. Photographs are available at distance on an electronic database.

Contact Details:
Name: Sinem Ayse Gulmez
Email: sinem.gulmez@saltonline.org ; salt.research@saltonline.org
Address: Bankalar Caddesi, No 11, Karaköy-İstanbul
Tel: +90 0212 334 22 00

Country: Lebanon
Collection Type: Library Research center
Collection Size: 1,000-10,000
Period: 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Slides (positives)
Website: http://www.palestine-studies.org

The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) is a private, independent, non-profit organization, established in Beirut in 1963. It is dedicated to documentation, research, analysis, and publication on Palestinian affairs, as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The IPS began seriously collecting photographs in the early 1970s as a vital part of the cultural heritage and historical record of the Palestinian people. IPS is particularly proud to have amassed an archive in which photographs by Palestinians predominate.

Together, the various IPS collections total over 10,000 photos, many of them historical and unique, constituting a precious resource for those interested not only in the history of Palestine but also in the history of photography. The collections span the late 19th century to recent times, but by far the richest holdings are from the pre-1948 period. The subject matter ranges from Palestinian daily life (occupational, cultural, and leisure pursuits of all classes and population groups), through landscape and architecture, to military, public, and political activities and events. The some 400 photographs showcased in Walid Khalidi’s classic Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948 (first published in 1984) were all selected from the various IPS collections. With regard to the post-1948 period, the photographs cover in particular life in refugee camps, the 1967 war, and periods of the Lebanese civil war, including the 1982 Israeli invasion. The collections came to IPS by donation or purchase.

The most important of the IPS collections is that of Khalil Raad, comprising some 3,000 photographs dating from the late 19th century to the eve of the 1948 war. Acquired from Khalil Raad’s family in 1978, it constitutes the photographer’s own personal archive and is the largest collection of his work in existence. The photographs portray all aspects of Palestinian life, urban and rural, from the Ottoman to the late Mandate period, as well as landscapes, towns, and villages, religious and archeological monuments, portraits of prominent personalities (especially political and religious figures), and religious and public event.

Another important collection is the Jawhariyah collection, containing seven albums of photographs (around 859 photographs) carefully selected over a period of decades by the Palestinian musician and memoirist, Wasif Jawhariyah, and seven corresponding notebooks describing the photos, covering the photographic history of Palestine during the late Ottoman and British mandate periods.

Other holdings include: the IPS Photo collection, comprising 469 photographs, mostly from 1900 to 1948, donated to IPS by various individuals, families, and institutions; the PLO collection, comprising 107 photographs from the PLO Information and Culture Department from the period 1920-1948; the Fifth of June Society collection with 185 photographs by Khalil Raad covering the period 1900-1945; the Imperial War Museum collection, which contains around 202 photographs, and covers the period of the British mandate in Palestine; the Eric Matson collection, which includes around 229 photographs of Palestine under the British mandate originating from Jerusalem’s American Colony hotel and purchased by IPS from the U.S. Library of Congress; the Husayni collection, which contains around 55 photographs given to IPS by Hajj Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, depicting the Mufti both in Palestine and during visits abroad; the UNRWA collection, comprising around 630 photographs given to IPS by UNRWA and showing the refugee camps in the early years, from the late 1940s into the 1950s; the Arif al-Arif collection, consisting of 412 photographs mainly relating to the 1967 war, including the Palestinian exodus it triggered and scenes of destruction; and the IPS photo archives, comprising some 3,500 photographs from various sources (e.g. the United Nations, PLO, news agencies) amassed by IPS over the years of pre-1948 Palestine, the June 1967 war (including military action, destruction, and Security Council meetings), and Israel’s attack on Jordan in 1968.

The collection is housed at the IPS Library in Beirut. It is catalogued and available on an internal electronic database, with plans to make the collection accessible on the website. The collection has been featured in journals including Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyah, Jerusalem quarterly and Journal of Palestine Studies, and in publications such as Family Papers: Social modern history studies of Palestine, and British Mandate Jerusalem in the Jawhariyah Memories.

Contact Details:
Beirut Office
Name: Jeannette Sarouphim / Mirna Kalash Itani
Email: library@palestine-studies.org / archives@palestine-studies.org
Address: Anis Nsouli Street, Verdun P.O. Box 11-7164 Beirut 1107 2230 Lebanon
Tel: +961 1 868387 / 814175 / 804959

Ramallah Office
Name: Sally Abu Bakr
Email: sallyabubakr@gmail.com
Address: 19 Emile Habibi Street, 4th flr. Al-Masion, Ramallah P.O. Box Ramallah 487
Tel: +9702 or +9722 2989108

Country: Palestine
Collection Type: Library Research center
Collection Size: 10,000-50,000
Period: 1860-1900 1900-1930 1930-1960 1960-1980 Later than 1980
Type of Material & Format: Black and White images Colour images Digital files Film-based negatives Glass plates positives and/or negatives Prints Slides (positives)
Website: http://www.ebaf.edu

The Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Française (EBAF) was founded in 1890 by religious friars of the St Stephen’s convent led by Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange in Palestine. In addition to its primary mission in the field of biblical studies and archeology, the EBAF extends its scope to related disciplines such as history and geography of the Near East, ‘oriental’ languages, and connected documentation activities.

It holds an archive of 19th century photography, with many of the collections having direct relevance to the school’s archaeological pedagogy. The original holdings relate mainly to the fieldtrips carried out by the school in the broader Near-East region. It comprises around 18,000 glass plates in various sizes, of which two-thirds are negatives, and the rest mostly positive duplicates. These include stereoscopic views and rare autochromes. There are few prints from the glass plate negatives, although contact sheets exist for half the collection, which also includes albumen prints from pre-1914 commercial collections such as Bonfils.

The original holdings were enriched by three deposits: 1,600 glass plates from the French Assumptionist fathers dating back to 1896 and donated by the Notre-Dame Center of Jerusalem; 700 medium-format contact prints from a Spanish Dominican priest dating back to his time as a student at the school in 1929-31; 550 stereoscopic negatives dating from 1908-1909; and more recently, 2,200 scans from the White Fathers (Pères-Blancs) of Saint-Anne Monastery in the Old City of Jerusalem, including scans of 705 glass plates; 1,700 scans from the Jesuits of the Biblical Pontifical Institute, Jerusalem; and around 350 scans from the Italian Salesians from Beit Jimal (Palestine).

The contemporary holdings from the last 30 years contain thousands of film negatives in 35mm or medium format, as well as colour slides. These come mainly from the archeological surveys carried out by the school, and the trend has been to document endangered archeological and historical sites.

EBAF’s holdings are fully catalogued and accessible to researchers on appointment. The collection has been fully scanned, and there are plans for an online database. There are also cooperation arrangements in place with other churches in Jerusalem to help digitize their collections.

The EBAF collection has been the subject of many exhibitions in the region and in Europe, as well as several books: Distant Jerusalem, Holy City; Photographies d’Arabie: Hedjaz 1907-1917; Al-Quds al-Sharif, Patrimoine musulman de la Vieille Ville de Jérusalem: Photographies 1890-1925; Souvenirs d’Orient; Jerusalem: A Principios Del Siglo XX, Patrimonio y Cultura; Pilgrims to Makkah 1908; Itineraires Bibliques; The Empire and the Kingdom: Jordan as seen by the École biblique et archéologique francaise de Jérusalem (1893-1935); Jérusalem et la Palestine à travers la collection photographique de l’Ecole biblique de Jérusalem (directed by Elias Sanbar, ed. Hazan, Paris, 2013). More recent exhibitions, with printed catalogues, include: Chateaubriand, itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem à travers les photographies de l’Ecole biblique de Jérusalem (Paris, 2013); Chrétiens d’Orient (Paris, 2014); Gerusalemme fotografata. Immagini d’all’archivio dell’Ecole biblique et archéologique française di Gerusalemme 1870-1935 (Lugano, Museo Cantonale d’Arte, 2014).

Contact Details: Name: Père Jean-Michel de Tarragon
Email: tarragon@ebaf.edu
Tel: +972 2 626 44 68
Address: 6 Nablus Rd., East Jerusalem
Other website: www.ebaf.info

SALT

National Library of Jordan

National Library and Archives of Iran

Koç University Suna Kıraç Library

Institute for Palestine Studies

Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation

Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Française

Bibliothèque Orientale – Université Saint-Joseph

Contacts

Forum