Middle Eastern Studies
The Near Eastern Studies Collection
The 21st floor of the Du Bois Library is home to almost 2500 books primarily in Arabic.
Five College Libraries Books
Discovery Search lets you to find print books and ebooks at UMass and the other Five College libraries.
By default, results will include many formats including articles and films. To limit your results to books, find the 'Format' header on the results page and click 'Books' and/or 'eBooks'.
Once you find a book in Discovery Search, look for the location near the bottom of the record.
- If the location is 'UMass Amherst Du Bois General Collection' you have two options:
- Use the call number to find the book on the shelves. For information on how to use call numbers to locate print books, scroll down to the 'Call Numbers' section.
- Click 'Place Request' to have the book sent to the Du Bois Library held shelf on the lower level for pick-up.
- If the location is listed as a different Five College library:
- Click 'Place Request' to have the book sent to the Du Bois Library for pick-up.
The links to access each ebook vary but will match or look similar to these:
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⚠️ Note that you cannot access ebooks that are only available at Amherst, Smith, and Mount Holyoke online libraries. This FAQ explains alternatives.
💡Quick Tip
Use the "Language" heading on the left side of the Discovery Search results page to narrow your results to a specific language or languages.
Books Beyond the Five College Libraries
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WorldCat This link opens in a new windowSearch for books from libraries across North America, much of Europe, and other parts of the world. You will find many more books than we have here in the Five College Libraries. It is especially useful if you are looking for books in languages other than English.
When you find a book in WorldCat that you want to borrow, you can do so for free by following these steps:
- Click the blue button on the right side of that page that says "View Access Options".
- In the box that appears, click "Request Item(s) through Interlibrary Loan".
- If you have never used Interlibrary Loan before, you will be prompted to complete a short form before proceeding.
- Confirm that the information in the pre-populated form is correct and "Submit Request".
If the library is able to successfully fill your request, which is almost always the case, you will receive an email notification that the book is ready to use.
You can also check the status of your request by logging in on the Interlibrary Loan page.
Ebook Collections
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Arabic Collections Online (ACO)A digital library of public domain Arabic language content drawn from rich collections of distinguished research libraries.
