The G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection (formerly known as the "Matson Photo Service Collection") contains over 23,000 glass and film negatives, transparencies, and photographic prints, created by the American Colony Photo Department and its successor firm, the Matson Photo Service. The collection came to the Library between 1966 and 1981, through a series of gifts made by Eric Matsonand his beneficiary, the Home for the Aged of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Los Angeles (now called the Kensington Episcopal Home). The American Colony Photo Department in Jerusalem was one of several photo services operating in the Middle East before 1900. Catering primarily to the tourist trade, the American Colony and its competitors photographed holy sites, often including costumed actors recreating Biblical scenes.The American Colony outlasted the other services, successfully making the transition from 19th-century large-size albumen views to the smaller, less expensive picture postcard format which dominated the twentieth century. The firm's photographers were actual residents of Palestine. Their intimate knowledge of the land and people gave them an advantage over commercial photographers who were not based in Palestine and made their coverage more comprehensive. They documented Middle East culture, history, and political events from before World War I through the collapse of Ottoman rule, the British Mandate period, World War II, and the emergence of the State of Israel.

The Ragheb Moftah Collection in the Library of Congress documents Moftah's 75-year career as an ethnomusicologist who served as the chair of the Music Department at the Institute of Coptic Studies in Egypt from 1954 until he died in 2001. The collection includes 14 folios of Ernest Newlandsmith's transcriptions, the work of a British violinist and composer whom Moftah sponsored to transcribe the Coptic liturgy of St. Basil and other seasonal hymns from 1926 to 1936. The collection also consists of correspondence between Moftah and other scholars, though the bulk of these letters outline Newlandsmith and Moftah's working relationship for 10 years. Furthermore, the collection also contains Moftah's recordings of the great cantor, Mu'allim Mikhā'īl Jirjis al-Batanūnī, between 1940 and 1957, and recordings of the St. Basil liturgy made by the Institute of Coptic Studies Choir starting in 1954.

Marian Roberston-Wilson's Revised Guide to the Ragheb Moftah Collection of Coptic Chant accompanies the 21 converted CDs and provides the Coptic texts, transliteration, and English translation for the liturgy of St. Basil. There are also audiocassettes of the Liturgy of St. Basil as chanted by Mu'allim Sadek Atallah, as well as the Nativity Feast, the Great Lent, the Pentecostal Feast, the Midnight Psalmody, music of a wedding ceremony, and recordings of other Coptic Church occasions.

Additional materials from the Ragheb Moftah Collection include photographs and videos of Moftah's centennial birthday party on December 21, 1998, his funeral on June 18, 2001 and final burial on April 25, 2002, autobiographical interviews conducted by Raymond Stock between 1996 and 1997, and Laurence Moftah's interviews with Martha Roy and Margit Tóth on March 13, 2002. The recordings and videos from the Ragheb Moftah Collection are housed in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. All other materials are in the Music Division. In order to contextualize Moftah's great contribution to the field of Coptic studies, and to understand more fully Coptic music, culturally and historically, this presentation also features materials from other divisions of the Library of Congress, such as books from the African and Middle Eastern Division, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and General Collections; historical maps of Egypt from the Geography and Maps Division; photographs of Coptic churches in Cairo from the Prints and Photographs Division; and the John E. Gillespie Collection of Coptic recordings, courtesy of the American Folklife Center.