Book excerpt: The World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts is a collective bibliographical work, which brings together the work of manuscript scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, from all parts of the world, aiming to enhance our knowledge of the written heritage of the Islamic civilization. and similar works, and at the same time to bring together and update most of the information contained in them. It offers a guide to collections of Islamic manuscripts, details of access to these collections and their holdings, and information about particularly significant manuscripts which they contain.