June 15, 2006
This is the Library's report on the proposed Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures.
The SFU Library supports the establishment of this Centre as outlined in the proposal. Our English Language holdings have been reviewed and will be adequate to support this Centre. However, the proposal indicates that the Centre is interested in "expanding the library holdings in primary languages relevant to the Centre's mandate (Arabic, Urdu, Turkish) . . . " These languages are currently outside of our collecting scope. Developing collections in these languages will not only require funds for the collection of actual materials, but will also require funding for cataloguing the material, as the requisite language skills are not available in-house.
Currently there are no existing funds to support this type of collection development. Section 4 of the proposal states, "The Centre will raise funds for the augmentation of the collection in areas and languages concerned with its mandate." The Library would welcome partnering with the Centre in this endeavor.
Please see section seven of the SFU Library Collections Policy Statement [ http://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/collections/policies/statement.htm#languages ] for more information.
There are no additional library costs associated with this centre.