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Author:
Fentahun Tiruneh, Area Specialist for Ethiopia and Eritrea, African and Middle Eastern Divsion
Created: June 1, 2020
Last Updated: February 28, 2021
The 1,095 pamphlets listed in this guide are part of the larger collection of Ethiopicana by the late Dr. Thomas Leiper Kane, a linguist who spent close to 45 years in Ethiopia. He was the author of two compendiums; Amharic-English Dictionary (1990) and Tigrinya- English Dictionary (2000). After the Library of Congress acquired the materials in 2001, two interns provided assistance - in 2005 Tracy Titus organized and tabulated the pamphlets in different subject headings; and in 2014 Sijui Kama Bartrum updated the headings and, with assistance from the Library's Preservation, overhauled the entire file holding system. The materials that Dr. Kane collected date from 1896 to 2000. Though the major part of the collection is on Ethiopia, it also includes some mixed pamphlet materials from all subjects on Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.
The pamphlet collection of Dr. Thomas Leiper Kane is part of a larger collection of materials such as books, rare books, manuscripts, maps, serials, video and audio materials. Dr. Kane collected the materials when Eritrea was part of Ethiopia, and he continued to collect some more materials after Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993. The 111 materials listed under Eritrea are mostly historical and political. The scope of this pamphlet collection ranges from mid-1990s to 2000, mainly covering the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia though there are very few that go back to the 1930s.
Each article is assigned a number for users' convenience. Users may submit a request slip with the assigned number for each article in each category. The librarian will serve the user with the requested articles in the African and Middle Eastern Reading Room (LJ-229). Please make sure that you indicate first the country you are researching. If it is about Ethiopia, please indicate which subject you consulted in the guide and submit the number assigned to the article of your choice.
Upon returning the folders, please make sure each pamphlet/article is inserted inside the correct folder.
The African and Middle Eastern Division (AMED) was created in 1978 as part of a general Library of Congress reorganization. AMED currently consists of three sections - African, Hebraic and Near East - and covers more than 77 countries and regions from Southern Africa to the Maghreb and from the Middle East to Central Asia. Each section plays a vital role in the Library's acquisitions program; offers expert reference and bibliographic services to the Congress and researchers in this country and abroad; develops projects, special events and publications; and cooperates with other institutions and scholarly and professional associations in the US and abroad.
As a major world resource center for Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, AMED has the custody of more than one million physical collection materials in the non-Roman-alphabet languages of the region such as Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, and Yiddish. Included in these collections are books, periodicals, newspapers, microforms, grey literature, and rarities such as cuneiform tablets, manuscripts, incunabula (works printed before 1501), and other early African and Middle Eastern publications. Among the most prized items are also several sizable pamphlet collections on African Studies.
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