More than four centuries ago, the University Library in Leiden started collecting Arabic manuscripts and printed books. Although there are other university libraries in the Netherlands which have collections in the field of Islamic Studies, Leiden has by far the largest collection in this field

Vrolijk, A.

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Buying Books at the Cairo International Book Fair

Leiden University Scholary Publications

Miscellaneous4 6 I S I M N E W S L E T T E R 1 / 9 8Univ er s i ty L ib r ar y, L ei denAR N OU D V RO L I JKMore than four centuries ago, the University Library inLeiden started collecting Arabic manuscripts and print-ed books. Although there are other university librariesin the Netherlands which have collections in the field ofIslamic Studies, Leiden has by far the largest collectionin this field.Buying Booksat the CairoInternational Book FairThe acquisition of Arabic books and manu-scripts has always had its problems. Booksellersin the Netherlands have never been able to sup-ply Arabic titles, except when a local publishertook the trouble to produce them (fortunately,quite a large number of publishers did so, mostnotably firms like Brill or Elzevier). Direct pur-chasing from the Middle East has never beenanything but difficult, dependent as we were onDutch merchants residing in the Middle East orconsular agents. Fortunately, this situationappeared to change for the better, when, in the1970’s, a bookseller in Beirut started distributingcatalogues containing the best of what wasavailable in the Arab World, and who could alsoconduct his correspondence with our Acquisi-tions Department in English. The Lebanese civilwar put an end to all this: the books kept comingfrom Beirut (after the local militias had leviedtheir export fees), but the bookseller himself hadmoved to Cyprus. When, in addition to this,financial transactions became impossible, wewere confronted with the awkward situationthat we received bills we could not pay, andbooks we had not ordered but could not returnbecause the mail service to Lebanon had beendiscontinued. By 1986, we had so much of ourassets tied up that it became unworkable.In 1987, Jan Just Witkam, curator of OrientalCollections at Leiden University Library, paid avisit to the International Arab Book Fair in Cairo.Booksellers and publishers from all over the ArabWorld participate in this yearly fair, not onlyputting their books on display but also sellingthem to the public at attractive discounts.Witkam decided it would be worthwile to sendsomeone over from Leiden to see if direct pur-chasing would work. If it did, we would have theadditional benefit of cutting out all the ‘middle-men’, an attractive proposition from the point ofcost effectiveness. The only thing was that theamount of purchased books would have to befairly high, in order to reduce overhead costs(travelling expenses etcetera) to a minimum pertitle.This was all very well, but how could we getthe books out of Egypt? In the oldest bureacracyin the world it often seems that everything is ille-gal unless expressly permitted, and as far as weknew we needed an export permit. For this wecalled upon the service of the Netherlands (nowNetherlands/Flemish) Institute for Archaeologyand Arabic Studies at Cairo. The Institute turnedout to be quite willing to help us to obtain thenecessary permits and to despatch the books inthe mail. The Leiden Library representativecould also enjoy the Institute’s hospitality inreturn for a nominal fee (cost effectiveness!).In 1988, less than six months after I enteredthe service of the Library, I went to Cairo to visitthe Book Fair. Everyday the Institute’s chauffeurdrove me to the fair grounds in Medinet Nasr, aCairo suburb. I checked the stands of booksellersand publishers from countries like Egypt, Syria,Iraq, Tunisia and Morocco, and I bought every-thing that looked new and interesting. When Iran out of money I returned to Leiden, leavingthe books in the care of the Institute. Threemonths later, I received the five hundred titles Ihad bought via the post.Until now this procedure has remained basi-cally unaltered. Local purchasing appears to becheap enough to defray all extra expenses, and Ihave found the Cairo Book Fair to be a veritablegoldmine, especially for titles from smaller pub-lishing houses, or other titles on out-of-the-waysubjects that do not usually find their way intothe catalogues of the regular booksellers.Nevertheless, doing business in the MiddleEast does have its surprises. I was, for instance, inCairo at the Book Fair when the second Gulf Warbroke out. Notwithstanding the fact that Cairo isfurther from Baghdad than Amsterdam fromMoscow, most airlines discontinued their ser-vices immediately. The first to give up was KLM,our national pride. Eventually, I flew home withAustrian Airlines, almost the only company thatwas still ‘in the air’, presumably, as rumour had it,because Austria’s excellent relations with Iraqsafeguarded Austrian aircraft from beingattacked by Iraqi missiles.A few years later my books took unusuallylong to arrive. Enquiring at Cairo’s General PostOffice produced a formal declaration with manybrightly coloured official stamps, stating ‘thatthe books in question were already in my pos-session’. After months of waiting the EgyptianMail delivered a great number of parcels on mydoorstep with ‘University of Tokyo’ on the labels.Immediately I wrote to Tokyo, informing them ofthis unusual event and politely enquiring if theyhad received my books. They had indeed and inthe end everybody received their own books (tothe detriment of cost effectiveness however).This unfortunate incident has prompted us toengage the services of a private Egyptian courierservice, which works excellently. ♦Drs Arnoud Vrolijk is assistant curator of OrientalCollections at the Leiden University Library.

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Buying Books at the Cairo International Book Fair

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