ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 204 / C&RL News ■ A p ril 2004 J o b of a Lifeti D m an¡anne e M¡zzy Preserving Afghanistan’s present and past If you are one o f those people w ho can think on y o u r feet a n d seize th e m om ent, th e n Shaista Wahab’s brand of special collections w ork might b e your job o f a lifetime. W ahab is a cataloger an d th e curator o f the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection at the University o f Nebraska-Omaha (UNO) Library. C om prising m ore th an 12,000 titles in 24 languages covering all subject areas p ertain in g to A fghan life an d culture, th e Paul Collection is the largest collection o f Afghan materials in the West. It is dedi­ c a te d to th e p re se rv a tio n o f A fghanistan’s history an d cul­ tural h eritage fo r cu rre n t an d future generations o f scholars. Capturing history It se e m s lik e fate b ro u g h t Wahab to Omaha and ultimately to the helm of the Paul Collec­ Shaista Wahab, cataloger and cu ra to r o f th e A rth u r Paul Afghanistan Collection at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. tion. B orn in Kabul, A fghani­ stan, w ith degrees from Kabul U niversity in history a n d the U niversity o f D elhi in library science, Wahab followed her sister to O m aha af­ ter th e Soviet invasion o f Afghanistan, unaw are o f th e existence of UNO’s C enter for Afghani­ stan Studies or the Paul Collection. She fo u n d w o rk at the UNO library in O ctober 1981. From a nonprofessional position she has risen to the rank of professor, making unique contribu­ tions to the Paul Collection and to Afghanistan’s historical record along the way. The first of these was the Afghan Oral History Project. “In the early 1980s,” Wahab said, “a lot of Afghan immigrants w ere com ing here as a result o f the Soviet inva­ sion. I w anted to record their experiences on au­ diotape while their memories w ere fresh. I started the project w ith the support o f the library admin­ istration, and I called it the Afghan O ral History Project. I sent letters to Afghans and non-Afghans, people w hose lives had been changed as a result of the invasion o f the Soviet Union, asking them to participate in the project. A g o o d num ber of them agreed.” Her team collected 24 hours o f unique personal ex­ periences in English, Pashto, and Dari (Afghan Persian), the tapes o f w hich reside in the Paul Col­ lection. Afghanistan unveiled This w as far from the last sp e­ cial project for Wahab. In 2002, she got a call from th e Asia Foundation. She chuckled as she recalled, “T hey to ld m e that th ey h a d a project training Af­ ghan w om en to be journalists. I get that kind of call all the time, so I ask ed w h a t m aterial they w anted to help w ith the project. They said, ‘We w an t y o u to go to A fghanistan.’ I said, ‘I c a n ’t b eliev e it. W hy d o y o u w a n t m e to go?’ T hey replied, ‘Well, w e did some checking— you have done som e oral history projects, and you have a history background. We w an t y o u to train the w om en in collecting oral history interviews and help create a docum entary.’ I w as surprised, but they insisted, so I agreed.” She continued, “It w as m y first trip back after 23 years. For ab o u t four w eeks I w as w orking w ith th e French m edia a n d th e journalism stu- Danianne Mizzyis assistant head o f the Engineering Library at the University o f Pennsylvania. Have an idea fo ra "Job of a L¡fet¡ me" story? E-mail: dan¡anne‹Bseas. upenn.edu C&RL News ■ April 2004 / 205 dents to film interviews of Afghan women. I didn’t expect to leave Kabul, but the students, the French journalists, and I traveled to five different prov­ inces and collected something like 65 interviews. This culminated in a documentary called A fghani­ stan Unveiled. It was well received, and I think it was a really good project.” A r c h iv in g A f g h a n is t a n 's c o n s t it u tio n a l c o n v e n tio n The next time the Asia Foundation called proved just as much o f a surprise. “In November 2 0 0 3 , I got a call from the Asia Foundation asking if I was willing to help with the constitution,” Wahab explained. “I didn’t know in what area or what aspect o f help they needed. They replied, ‘We need an archivist to compile the archives o f the Loya Jirga’ [the constitutional convention]. They wanted me to get ready in ten days. The university and the library have b een very supportive. The moment the projects have come, they have told me I can go if I want to.” W a h a b s p e n t fiv e w eeks o f nonstop w ork Special collections cataloger and curator W here: Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection at the University o f Omaha-Nebraska F o r m o re in fo rm a tio n , visit: library. unomaha.edu/information/collections/ apac.php3 at the Loya Jirga. “All the m eetings w ere held in heated tents outside the Kabul Polytechnic Insti­ tute. O ne tent was de­ voted to the archives and the library. W hen I got there they had an archi­ vist and they had docu­ ments in piles in folders. These were letters and commentaries by Afghan citizens writing comments about the draft consti­ tution that had b een distributed in the villages. I organized all those and then prepared for the con­ stitutional committee to start work on December 14. We were a resource for the delegates and the press. I tried to get them current issues o f the newspapers and also collected legal documents from the Ministry of Justice and copies o f the old constitution o f Afghanistan. There were comput­ ers with Internet access that they could use as well for e-mails and news. I hired some photographers to get visual docum entation o f the entire pro­ ceedings. Once I saw what kind of documents we were getting, I prepared procedures for all the different formats like video tapes, CDs, paper documents, and photographs. All of us were work­ ing long hours, seven days a week, but we got all the procedures in place before I left. I was really pleased to have b een part o f the whole thing.” S p e c ia l c o lle c t io n s , sp e c ia l c h a lle n g e s W hen I asked Wahab about working with spe­ cial collections, she observed, “It is a challenge for sp ecial c o llectio n s librarians to lo o k for different aspects o f how they can enrich their collection. We can m ake it m ore challenging and more interesting by gathering unique ma­ terials. For example, the oral histories that I did are unique to this library only. It is history, but if it hadn’t been collected then… memories fade, people have passed away. One more tiling that I did was to compile a bibliography of titles in the collection. Some feel that bibliographies are out­ dated. You can go to our online catalog and find the titles that w e have because most o f them are cataloged. But I thought a bibliography would serve a unique purpose, especially for scholars, and would publicize the collection. I, myself, sometimes use the bibliography because it is ar­ ranged by subject. Volume O ne is Pashto and Dari titles and Volume 2 English and Euro­ pean titles.” … an d s p e cia l s e rv ice s Wahab explained that sh e splits h er time pretty evenly between cataloging and public service. “T h e collec­ tion is used by univer­ sity students and fac­ ulty, but w e also get national and international visitors, mainly government officials, writers, and scholars who come to use the collection. A lot of scholars and writers will send m e the table o f contents o f their b ooks and tell me w hat they are thinking about writing. They will ask me to suggest, for each chapter, what to use. I will send back a bibliography recommending sources. By the end, w hen they are done with the research, they often give their papers to the library. We have gotten a lot o f good personal collections that way.” T here is on e last special project to tell you about. Over the years, Wahab received many re­ quests for a book to help learn the Dari language. At this point, I think it will com e as no surprise for you to learn that she w rote it h erself and found a publisher. UNO and the field o f Af­ ghanistan studies has one very special librarian in its ranks. ■