Biography of Adnan Malik, UC Berkeley’s South Asia librarian

I am a native of Lahore, Pakistan. Like all good South Asian young men, I came to the US as an engineering student. I went to Ohio Wesleyan Universiy, which had a transfer program with the California Institute of Technology. However, Ohio Weslayan is a liberal arts school and that meant I had to take courses in subjects other than Physics, Chemistry and Math. That was how I took a couple of courses in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology and really liked them. In fact, when it came time to transfer to CalTech, I decided to change my major and become a Sociology student. Two semesters of electronics were also instrumental in this decision. Hats off to those who can do this stuff.

On graduation I was lucky enough to get admission to the University of Chicago’s Sociology PhD program. Once there, I decided to take full advantage of the university’s stimulating intellectual offerings and took courses in subjects other than Sociology. Among other things, I picked up some Arabic and Persian. And thus it was that my stipend ran out before I realized it.

In need of a job, I asked around until I was led to the Regenstein Library, University of Chicago’s main library, where the South Asia collection needed someone to catalog a recently acquired microfilm set of British Indian publications that were part of the India Office’s library collection. Actually, this was a joint project between the University of Chicago library and CRL who owned the microfilm set, and before I fully realized it, I was part of CRL’s South Asia Microfilm Project or SAMP.

The work was also interesting because it dovetailed nicely with my academic interest. I was studying religious reform movements in British Panjab as a way of understanding the formation of early modern political identities. However, once I had done my research and all my questions were answered at least to my satisfaction, I realized I did not have any great nuggets of sociological wisdom to share with the world. At the same time, the strangely ascetic, yet bohemian, graduate student life style was beginning to get a little too much to bear.

Since I found my work at the library enjoyable and rewarding, I decided to make the switch formally and applied for the South Asia librarian’s position at Cornell University, which had fortuitously opened up just then. I joined Cornell in October 2003 and spent two very pleasant years there. Managing a large, diverse and nationally recognized South Asian collection was a rewarding challenge. I only sometimes wished for a better mesh between my language skills and the needs of the collection.

It was that wish which led me to apply for the South Asia librarian’s position here at Berkeley when it opened up. While I did a good enough job at Cornell that I am gratified to say many colleagues were sad to see me go, I do believe I can contribute even more to the larger world of South Asian librarianship at Berkeley because of the nature of the South Asia collection here and the traditional areas of academic interest faculty and students have had.

I am very grateful for how welcome everyone has made me feel here since my arrival and deeply appreciate how helpful everyone is. I hope to return the favor by doing my share to make Berkeley’s library system a desirable and enjoyable place to work and to maintain its reputation as one of the best in the world. – Adnan Malik

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