UMAM Documentation and Research is pleased to invite you to the re-launch of its online archival catalogue UMAM Biblio, accompanied by an exhibition featuring visual materials from Baalbeck Studios.

From its inception in 2005, UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R) has striven to put its documentation and archival assets, which include periodicals, publications, written documents, audiovisual materials, and photos relating mainly to Lebanon and its recent history, at the disposal of whoever wishes to use them.

UMAM D&R is grounded in the belief that such assets have a role to play in informing and structuring public debates. Therefore, we conceived the establishment of this platform to give direct access to our physical catalogs, and to some digitized materials, as a necessary part of being a citizen archive.

UMAM Biblio exists in two versions: one in Arabic with Arabic content, and one in English with mainly English (but also some other language) content. By nature, UMAM D&R’s archival collections are in continuous expansion, both its physical and digital holdings. Therefore, the platform is an ever-growing and changing project.

This updated edition of UMAM Biblio is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, and comes after a first edition was developed with support of the Swiss Embassy in Beirut.

The new edition of UMAM Biblio is dedicated to Lokman Slim, UMAM D&R’s co-founder and co-director who was assassinated in south Lebanon on 3 February 2021. His legacy lives on through our continued work. 

The exhibition is supported by the French program “Protection du Patrimoine Immatériel Libanais en Péril” (Institut Français Beirut). It is part of the Modern Heritage Observatory (MOHO) network, and coincides to mark the International Archives Day on 9 June. We would like to thank again the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in Berlin for its work digitizing the analog film elements.