The development of the library at Institute of ethnology and anthropology
is mainly a result of the general processes that happened in Macedonia, processes
that were related to the development of ethnology and anthropology as academic
disciplines. After the creation of the Seminar of Ethnology at the Philosophical
faculty in 1925, a specialized collection of publications on ethnography,
ethnology and anthropogeography was created.
After the establishment of the Seminar of Ethnography and Ethnology in 1946, Prof. Branislav Rusich Ph.D. has taken the effort to establish and equip the Library of the Seminar. After the cancellation of the Seminar in 1953, that is, after the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics separated from the Philosophical Faculty in 1958, the library fund was transferred to the Geographical Institute. Until specialized ethnology studies were established, that is until 1988, the Institute of Geography has not invested in purchasing ethnological literature.
After the formation of the Department of Ethnology, under the Institute of Geography, and until 2005, only the most basic domestic and foreign literature from the fields of ethnology and anthropology was purchased. After the formation of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in 2005 a procedure is ongoing to receive the books from the ethnological and anthropological field, that according to library registration belonged to the ethnological studies.
In 2002 the collection of Prof. Joel Martin Halpern Ph.D. was formed, which among other archive and ethnographic materials contains 1200 bibliographic units, mainly in English, that are of special importance to the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology.
Collection of Prof. Joel M. Halpern Ph.D.
In the period September-October 2002, Prof. Ljupco S. Risteski Ph.D. visited
for a study stay the University of Graz, that is, the Department for History
of South-Eastern Europe. There, in the Department's library, there is a copy
of the Collection of Prof. Joel Martin Halpern and his wife Barbara Kerewski-Halpern.
Today they both are still the most important foreign anthropologists that
have contributed most of their life to research of Balkan issues, especially
the ones related to former Yugoslavia. They have started their research in
the 50'ties of the XXth century, primarily in Serbia and afterwards in other
republics of former Yugoslavia. In 2003, through the efforts of Ljupco S.
Risteski, and in cooperation with Prof. Halpern, the Collection of Prof. Halpern
on Macedonia was established. It is now kept at the IEA in Macedonia. The
project was fully supported by the Institute Open Society Macedonia.
The basic aim was to collect, classify and archive all materials that are now kept at the Collection of Prof. Halpern in the frames of the Archive of the University of Amherst, USA, and originate from Macedonia. During the study and research stay of Prof. Risteski in Amherst, the work was mainly done in the domestic archive and library of Prof. Halpern. The process was made easy due to the long-term systematic work of Prof. Halpern, as well as the digitalization of all documents and photo-documentation that was already done. The Collection contains more than hundreds of pages of materials that refer to Macedonia:
- Field notes from the research stays in Macedonia from 1954;
- Handwritings from the trip of Prof. Halpern through Macedonia in 1978, as a result of his participation in the program for cooperation between Skopje and Tempe;
- One audio-tape, recorded in the village of Volche, the place where anthropologist Joseph Obrembski worked in 1931-1932;
- Data basis that contain extremely important slides and photographs, systematized in three different data-basis, that refer to Macedonia.
Prof. Halpern has presented the IEA other 1200 publications (periodicals and monographs) from the field of ethnology and anthropology, so that IEA can be proud to have one of the most relevant and richest collections of anthropological literature at the Balkans, for which the IEA is extremely grateful to Mr. Halpern.
Secretary and Librarian:
Igor Petrushevski, graduated ethnologist
E-mail: iea@iunona.pmf.ukim.edu.mk