George N. Atiyeh

In a town full of Middle East experts, George Atiyeh could be called an expert's expert. For one thing, he keeps in his custody the Western world's largest collection of volumes in Near East languages—volumes which scholars come from far and wide to consult and to learn from. For another, many Middle East specialists frequently drop in on Dr. Atiyeh not to peruse his books but to pick his brains.

Both Dr. Atiyeh and the books are to be found in Washington's Library of Congress, where for 17 years he has been the head of the "Near East Section" of that world-famous institution. The volumes in his domain number more than 200,000 in the living languages of the area: about 120,000 in Arabic, 30,000 in Persian, 30,000 in Turkish and another 30,000 in Armenian and various tongues of Central Asia. Hebrew is handled by a separate section.

"This, of course, does not mean that these are the only books in the Library of Congress on the Middle East," Dr. Atiyeh says in his careful and judicious way. "There are more than twice as many volumes in English and non-Near East languages in the general section of the Library."

Searching for the Special

But the scholar or other specialist who comes to the Near East Section does so for what he cannot find in the general library—and perhaps not outside the Library of Congress either. He might be looking for the first edition of a classic in Persian, or an article in a 1946 copy of a Benghazi newspaper, or be in need of the text in Arabic of North Yemen's first three-year plan.

Couldn't he do this just as well at, say, Harvard? Unlikely. "In the first place, he probably couldn't use that library unless he were a professor or student there," Dr. Atiyeh says. "Our own library is open to everyone—you don't even need a card to go in. This makes us different not only from university libraries but from other national libraries around the world."

Even assuming the researcher could have access to Harvard, however, he would not find everything that is available at the Near East Section. "Harvard has an excellent collection, of course," says Dr. Atiyeh, "and it may even be stronger than ours in certain academic areas. But ours is more comprehensive." A large number and variety of government publications from Middle East countries is one of the strong points in its comprehensiveness.

Other especially useful research tools available in the Section are a boodle of bibliographies—issued in English and not confined to texts in Near Eastern languages. For example, the section has put together a listing of all the newspapers of the Arab world held by the Library of Congress—a total of 680 newspaper titles in Arabic and 160 in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. Another bibliography gives hundreds of references on the history of the Arabs in the United States. There is a listing, every five years, of U.S. doctoral dissertations on Arab world subjects. And topical bibliographies come out steadily. "We have just produced one on Iran-U.S. relations from 1979 to 1981, and the demand for it has been enormous," Dr. Atiyeh says.

With all of this information at Dr. Atiyeh's fingertips, it is not surprising that he and his staff handle zillions of phone calls and letters from people seeking information and help in a variety of forms. But it's taken in stride by Dr. Atiyeh, who says it's all part of the service.

"Simple information—someone asks for a date or a name—we provide right away over the phone. But if the request requires a lot of detail, we will give guidance—suggesting the books and articles where the answers may be found, so as to help the person carry out the research on his own."

Fielding the Questions

Sitting in Dr. Atiyeh's office, you can capture the flavor of this part of his work. When the telephone rings the first time, it is the Smithsonian—which is preparing an event dedicated to the Muslim pilgrimage and would like Dr. Atiyeh, or someone whom he recommends, to be the speaker. Then, a friend from a library in town calls to corroborate the spelling of some Arab names. He also gets a call from a Congressional staffer who wants to know how much money Saudi Arabia gives to the PLO.

"They know I have all these resources, and expect me to answer everything," Dr. Atiyeh says. "And I try to. If I don't know the answer myself, and if it is not in the library, I have outside sources whom I can contact." Spoken like a true expert.

Besides being a sage and an administrator, it is also Dr. Atiyeh's responsibility to build up his library's collection, which has doubled in size since he took over in 1967. Other activities that go with the job include organizing cultural events: for example, an exhibition of Arab calligraphy and a conference on Arab American literature.

Dr. Atiyeh, now 60, is a historian whose specialty is the history of culture. At the American University of Beirut, where he received his B.A. and M.A., he majored in Arab history and minored in philosophy. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Oriental languages and literature, and spent 13 years as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico—seven of them as chairman of the department of humanities.