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historic-magazine

Historical Magazines, Newspapers, Periodicals

RBSCL maintains a variety of historical magazines, newspapers and periodicals, in Arabic, English, French and other languages, from Egypt and beyond.
  1. Rare Books and Special Collections Library (RBSCL)
  2. RBSCL Collections
  3. Historical Magazines, Newspapers and Periodicals

Other historical magazines housed at the RBSCL had a largely foreign language-speaking audience, like the British community’s Sphinx magazine (1890s - 1940s) and the German-language Papyrus magazine (1979-present). Also available for on-site browsing are the Francophone magazines and newspapers, digitized by the Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines. Some magazines, such as Rose el Youssef and US-based publications like Time, are available on microfilm or microfiche, indicated in the library catalog as "RBSCL Microforms." Request these at the RBSCL Research Help Desk, where librarians will direct users to third-floor microform storage and reader machines and provide assistance as needed.

Periodical journals are an important scholarly resource at the RBSCL, with over 260 titles predominantly in the fields of Egyptology and Islamic art and architecture, as well as archaeology and Middle East history. While most of these are contemporary academic journals, a number of titles are noteworthy for their rarity or age, such as the Journal of Indian Art, from 1886. Specialized professional periodicals like the Bulletin des Tribunaux Mixtes from the early 20th century, documenting the work of the Egyptian Mixed Courts, are also open for research. Magazines and periodicals may also be found in archival collections, sometimes in substantial runs as in the collection of Hassan Fathy. 

RBSCL holdings include a rich selection of journal article offprints, many of which were assembled by scholars like K.A.C. Creswell. These articles are organized by topic and geographical location.  An important collection of offprints are those assembled by Paul Kraus, a Prague-born scholar of Islamic civilization.  The subjects covered by the offprints (some of which date to the nineteenth century) include Arab and Islamic medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, and literature.  Also contained here are the writings of German physician and scholar of medieval Arab medicine Max Meyerhof (1874-1945).

The Rare Books and Special Collections Library also holds a variety of newspapers, primarily from Egypt and in Arabic and English. These include print holdings dating to the 1920s (al-Siyāsah al-usbūʻīyah), as well as state-owned and government-affiliated newspapers like Akhbar al-Youm, private publications such as The Egyptian Gazette and publications sponsored by political parties like Wafd. To access newspaper holdings, please check the library catalog; current issues are available for browsing on the Library Ground Floor, but for most titles, issues dating back more than a few years are held at RBSCL, and staff at the Research Help Desk on the third floor will retrieve physical items upon request for researchers to use in our reading rooms. A range of Egyptian newspapers from the period of the 2011 to 2014 Egyptian revolution and its aftermath are available from the Archives at RBSCL as part of the "University on the Square: Egypt's 21st Century Revolution" project. Newspapers (mostly from Egypt like Al-Ahram titles) are also available as microforms, indicated in the library catalog as "RBSCL Microforms." Request these at the RBSCL Research Help Desk, where librarians will direct users to third-floor microform storage and reader machines and provide assistance as needed.


For guidance, contact our specialists and see Visiting and Doing Research.

Search our collections via the Library Catalog and Rare Books and Special Collections Digital Library.