Dr. Paul Crego, Cataloging Specialist at the Library of Congress delivered a lecture at the NPLG on October 26. The topic of his lecture was Georgia and the Georgians at the Library of Congress. Dr. Crego talked about materials in Georgian at the Library of Congress.

Dr. Crego also informed the attending Georgian librarians and interested persons about the possibility of exchange programs. Dr. Paul Crego gave an overview of the general activities at the Library of Congress.

Dr. Paul Crego: I have been working at the Library of Congress since January 1999; I was hired to do Armenian language material and have been working on Georgian for about seven years. I also do some Amharic books [Ethiopian]. Before that I worked at Harvard University's Widener Library in the Middle East Division, cataloging Georgian and Armenian books. I worked part time, except for 1996 when I was working on the library's retrospective conversion. I have degrees in Soviet Studies from Syracuse University [B.A.] and Harvard [M.A.] as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Theology from Boston College. I continue academic research and writing in modern ethnic conflict [mainly Georgian-Abkhazian issues] and in Orthodox Church History [issues of ethnic and religious identity in modern times and studies of St. Nino and the conversion of the Georgians to Christianity]. From 2007-2008 I was the Staff Fellow at the Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Jr. Center [www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/] and spent a year working on the history of Abkhazia.