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[We are sorry to announce that we had to cancel the mid-term meeting we were supposed to hold in Alexandria this year, due to the current events in the Middle East preventing several of us from traveling to Egypt.We are very sorry for the inconvenience. Above all, we are sorry we cannot organize the conference on the Islamic Manuscripts and Prints. We are looking for solutions and still haven't made a decision about postponing it or just cancelling it]IFLA Rare Books and Special Collections Conference,Bibliotheca Alexandria (Alexandria, Egypt), March 19th, 2020           The IFLA Rare Books and Special Collections Section Committee is sponsoring a one day conference devoted to Islamic manuscripts and imprints, their special needs and international endeavors. In the digital age, the methods for the visibility and discoverability of written and printed cultural Arabic heritage materials entail special care and new challenges for libraries and their treasures. How can these institutions enhance access to these collections? Which professional standards must be developed? Which IT platforms, research gates or portals are needed or should be used? What collaborations are needed? What preservation and conservation standards have to be developed? Does the context, having Islamic Manuscripts and imprints in Western collections and Western items in Islamic collections, change the description methods or the treatment? The papers should go beyond local presentations but may address all kinds of issues from cataloguing, digitization, conservation to sustainability and networking.Topics to be covered could include:Best practices of cataloguing manuscripts and / or middle-eastern imprintsDigitization projects, OCR capabilities and digital humanities concerning Islamic manuscripts and imprints in middle-eastern languagesNational and international web portals for Islamic manuscripts and their necessary infrastructureCooperation and collaborative initiatives between Arabic and European librariesInitiatives and projects for public outreach and engagementScientific or chemical analysesConservation, preservation, restorationThe IFLA Rare Books and Special Collections Section Committee invites speakers to Alexandria to present their experiences and projects with special needs regarding Islamic manuscripts and middle-eastern imprints.The deadline for the call for papers is January 15th, 2020. Selected speakers will be informed by January 31, 2020. Please Note: No financial support is available from the organizers. Presentations will be made available online after the conference.Send proposal abstracts (500 words or less) in English plus a short, one paragraph C.V. to both Dr. Claudia Bubenik (Claudia.bubenik@bsb-muenchen.de) and Philip Croom (pcroom@aucegypt.edu).