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Why the Indian Ocean?

The Indian Ocean area has become an increasing focus of scholarly inquiry. The Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC) at McGill University has been convening an annual conference since 1999. In 1989, Tufts University established the Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies. Routledge has begun publication of an Indian Ocean Series of monographs. NYU Abu Dhabi sponsored a conference on “Africa and the Indian Ocean” in March 2010. The Kevorkian Center at NYU sponsored a conference on “Life and the Political: Regarding the Middle East from the Indian Ocean” in February 2013. In addition, the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies has been holding annual conferences since 2009. The level of scholarly journal literature on the Indian Ocean region has increased also.

The IOWC website notes that,

"This macro-region witnessed the early emergence of major centres of production and a monsoon-based system of trans-oceanic trade that led to the emergence by at least the tenth century of a sophisticated and durable system of long-distance exchange of commodities, monies, technology, ideas and people. The IOW was thus home to the first 'global' economy, one that dominated the macro-region until at least the mid eighteenth century – some would argue the nineteenth century, and which is again resurgent. Today the IOW comprises 50% of the planet's population and is forecast to become the leading world economy by 2020."

Given the significance of the Indian Ocean region, scholars are beginning to analyze it as a heuristic device – similar to Atlantic Studies. Indian Ocean studies is growing at NYU also, with courses such as, “The Medieval Indian Ocean World: Mobility & Encounters” taught by Prof. Tamer el-Leithy and “Narratives of the Indian Ocean” taught by Prof. Isabel Hofmeyr. However, the materials have already been utilized in other capacities by faculty who are not specifically focused on the Indian Ocean as an area of research, but who use significant portions of NYU’s collections, particularly the maps, as alternative and complementary ‘texts’ to contextualize the focus of their courses.

The NYU Indian Ocean Collection

In spite of the growing significance of the scholarship on the Indian Ocean, there are no substantial library collections that focus on the area as a whole. In 2006, NYU Libraries began building its IO collection with a purchase from Larry Bowman, a vendor specializing in the IO. This initial purchase was funded by a generous gift from an NYU alumnus. Since then we have continued to augment the collection with the purchases of maps and sea charts, a collection of Indian Ocean-area postcards, a large number of plates, and several manuscript collections. These supplement the more than 1,500 monographs we have on the Indian Ocean.

In order to maximize access to this collection we are digitizing those holdings that are not under copyright and are not digitally available elsewhere. We estimate that will encompass approximately 80 monographs, 2,000 postcards (including a subset of 500 postcards from the Italo-Ethiopian War), 300 maps and sea charts, 100 prints, and several manuscript collections, including the collection of Sir William Jones, held in NYU’s Fales Library.

Our primary audience will be NYU scholars who may need access to the Indian Ocean materials. This includes faculty/students at the Washington Square campus and at Abu Dhabi. The secondary audiences are the international scholars and U.S.-based researchers who do academic work on the Indian Ocean.

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