OVERVIEW

“Let others see their recreation
In beautiful songstresses and wine
What we offer are literary gatherings and books
As recreations of the minds”
Ibn Durayd (d.321/933)

The Scholar’s Library was established to support IAMM as a centre of education for the study of Islamic art, culture and civilisation by collecting, organising and preserving resources relating to the literary heritage of Islamic art and architecture. Currently, the library holds more than 5,000 items, ranging from new publications to rare books and collectors’ items, scholarly journals, art magazines, auction catalogues, photographs and audio-visual material. The library focuses on the collection of books and manuscripts that reflects the museum’s activities primarily exhibitions, seminars, conservation work and publications. The Scholar’s Library aim to be Malaysia’s foremost facility for the study of Islamic art and culture.

The general library collections include thousands of new books (from 1980 onwards), encyclopaedias, dictionaries, indexes, academic journals, magazines and auction catalogues. Users may search the collections through the online catalogue or by browsing the stacks.

The Special Collections contain rare books, out-of print material, collectors’ editions, prints, photographs and audio-visuals. Researchers may find works by leading Islamic art scholars such as Owen Jones’s Plans, Elevations, Sections and Details of the Alhambra (1842-25); Prisse d’Avesness’s La Decoration Arabe (1874) Arthur Pope’s A Survey of Persian Arts; Frederick Saree’s Islamic Bookbinding and Grohmann’s History of Islamic Books, among many other seminal works.

The Scholar’s Library also aims to become a study and documentation centre for Malay manuscript research by providing users with access and materials relating to manuscript studies. The library subscribes to a number of scholarly journals in the field and will soon begin a manuscript documentation project.