Blair Kuntz
Blair Kuntz has been the Near and Middle Eastern Librarain at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada since 2003. After studying history at the University of Toronto and obtaining an Honour's Bachelor of Arts, he received a Master of Library Science degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1984. After working as a librarian for the Canadian federal government in the departments of the Environment and the Department of Canadian heritage, he left for the Middle East and lived in Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt from 1996-2001. During his stay in the region, he studied Arabic as a foreign-language at Balamand University in Lebanon and Birzeit University in Palestine. He has since then also studied Turkish and Persian at the University of Toronto. Since his appointment as Near and Middle Eastern Studies librarian, he has presented and published internationally a number of peer-reviewed papers in the fields of library science, foreign-langauge learning, peace and conflict studies, e-learning, and cultural studies.