Hello, Salam, Сәлем, Салам, Салом, Salom, سالام, سلام, Բարև, and გამარჯობა!
My name is Nicholas Kontovas, but I generally prefer to be called Niko. I’m the Bodleian Libraries’ new Nizami Ganjavi Subject Librarian for the Caucasus and Central Asia!
I say “new”, but those regular visitors of the NGL among you will doubtless have already caught a glimpse of me dipping into the reading room to check the card catalogue or fussing over the Nowruz book display. I started in this post in January 2023 with the goal of curating and strengthening our collections and drumming up interest in parts of the world that often get overlooked: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as some adjacent regions of Eurasia with cultural and historical ties to these countries, like the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the Peoples’ Republic of China.
Some day in the near future, I hope to properly introduce myself through a serious of posts where we interview the staff who manage to the NGL’s collections. For now, I just wanted to let you all know that the Caucasus and Central Asia LibGuide is up and running!
You can use the LibGuide to find resources in our collection related to any of the regions above. There are also links to freely available resources online which you might not be aware of.
As our collection grows and we discover new resources, I’ll be expanding the LibGuides and making updates on this blog. If you know of any resources we have that aren’t on there, feel free to drop me a line using the info on the LibGuide. If there’s a resource we don’t have access to, you can also write me to recommend we try to get access to it.
Until then, happy browsing and sağol, сау бол, пока, خدا حافظ, hoş sag bol, ئامان بولۇڭ, ցտեսութիւն, and ნახვამდის!