IOR/R/15/2/1622

The file is concerned with the Bahrain Agency Library, which is a stock of books considered to be of use to Agency staff. The file therefore contains orders for new books, and relevant invoices and receipts; the main supplier is Messrs Thacker and Company Limited, Bombay. It also contains correspondence between British officials regarding missing books, or books on loan; the main correspondents being the Political Agent, Bahrain (Reginald Alban, Edward Wakefield, and Tom Hickinbotham) and the Secretary to the Political Resident, Persian Gulf (A C Stewart and J B Stewart). Guidance respecting measures to be taken to prevent the loss of books can also be found within.

A number of book lists can also be found within the file:

• list of books in the Bahrain Agency Library — compiled 1 May 1940 in response to instructions from the Persian Gulf Political Resident (ff 9-12);
• list of fifty recommended books for British officers serving in Persia and Arabia (ff 35-37);
• list of additional books added in the Bahrain Agency Library — compiled 25 February 1943 (f 77);
• list of books No. 39 (novels and general literature) supplied by Thacker and Company Limited — dated 24 April 1944 (ff 96-97 and f 101);
• list of 'old and duplicate' books for sale from the Bushire Subscription Library — dated 5 April 1946 (f 121);
• list of additional books added to the Bahrain Agency Library — undated (ff 124-129);
• list of missing books from the Bahrain Agency Library dated 28 March 1942 (f 136);
• list of books borrowed from the Library by RAF levy officers (f 148).

In addition, an advertisement for A Winter in Arabia by Freya Stark (London: John Murray, 1940) has been included in the file, see folio 30.