Library acquisition trip to Morocco 2018

There’s no better way to boost a library’s collection on Morocco than travelling to the annual book fair in Casablanca – the ‘Salon International de l’Édition et du Livre’ (SIEL). With over 700 participants from Morocco, North Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere – publishing houses, bookshops, writers’ associations, universities, NGOs, government institutions, among others – the 24th edition of the fair, from 8 to 18 February 2018, once more proved to be an excellent opportunity for finding books that, ordinarily, one does not (easily) come across.

Arabic, Berber and French publicationsThis year, Elvire Eijkman and Heleen Smits of ASCL’s library visited SIEL together with Marjan Nijborg of the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) and Tijmen Baarda, subject librarian for Middle Eastern Studies and the Islamic world at the Leiden University Libraries. Marjan focused on bringing the NIMAR collection in Rabat up-to-date; Tijmen concentrated on buying Arabic and Berber language publications for the university library; and we searched for books in Western languages for the library of the African Studies Centre. Most materials at the fair were in Arabic, but with 16 per cent of the over 3,800 books and magazines published in Morocco in 2016-2017 being in French, there was more than enough for us to ponder as well.

You can read the whole article on the website from African Studies Centre Leiden.