Present Needs of the Library
If you are inspired by the life of Hand of the Cause Mr Balyuzi and the work of the Afnan Library and would like to help his legacy grow so that the ‘rising generations’ may themselves follow in his ‘glorious footsteps’ and emulate his ‘outstanding scholarly pursuits’, you can do so by various means.
If you would like to make a financial contribution to the work of the library, please follow this link.
Donating materials
You can help the Library by donating books, other printed materials and manuscript materials that relate to the subject areas covered by the library. In particular, the Library seeks to obtain rare Bahá’í books and manuscripts and runs of Bahá’í periodicals, such as national newsletters. Please do not send any materials before checking with us that we need them and do not already have them. Please be aware, moreover, that, unless you have specified otherwise, the library reserves the right to dispose of any books that are duplicates or surplus to requirements by either donating them to other libraries or selling them to raise money for the Afnan Library. If you would like to contact us about donating books and other material, please go to our Contact Page and choose "Other contributions" on the drop-down list.
Volunteering your time
You can also help the library by volunteering your time:
The Library needs a qualified, volunteer librarian and archivist to advise on and continue the cataloging process, to advise on the conservation of its precious materials and to supervise researchers and visitors, as many of the books and manuscripts require special handling. Ideally the librarian will read both English and Persian. Arabic would be an advantage.
The Library needs volunteers who are willing to assist with cataloging and reception work.
The Library requires volunteers with IT skills who are willing to support library cataloging software and retrieval systems so that the cataloging can be transfered to a better system and can be made available online. This type of work can of course usually be done from home.
The Library would like to make its pages available in other languages. It would welcome volunteers who could translate these pages.
If you would like to volunteer, please go to our Contact Page and choose "Other contributions" on the drop-down list.