MELANET

Lesley went by a variety of names during her life. She started as Martha Poges, then got married and was known as Martha Dukas. Lesley later decided that she liked her middle name better so she officially changed it to M. Lesley Dukas. She then met her husband Peter, and became M Lesley Wilkins. This determination to change what she wasn’t satisfied with was the key to her whole character.
Lesley was born in Lawrence, MA. She went to Wakefield High School, followed by Simmons College where she leaned toward becoming a teacher. While at Simmons she became one of the few under-graduate students to have a paper published. Her majors were English and French. A chance conversation with a friend of her father’s led her to travel via cargo ship from New York to the American University in Beirut where she obtained her Masters in Middle East History (1966 – 1968). During this time she was evacuated, due to hostilities, to Cyprus, and ended up planting tulip bulbs in Holland so that she could earn money to return to Beirut to finish her studies. She left Beirut and settled in Los Angeles where she also obtained a Masters in Library Sciences. Lesley returned to Boston where she obtained a position at Widener Library. She later took a position at Boston Public Library as head of Technical Services.

In 1985, Lesley took a leave of absence from BPL to join the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman to help establish that institution’s academic library. That rekindled her interest in the Middle East. While in Oman she met her husband Peter Wilkins whom she married in 1987. She returned to BPL, and while there she also studied for her PhD in whatever spare time she might have had. She left BPL in 1991 to join her husband in Cairo, Egypt. Lesley took up a post at the American University in Cairo as Curator of Rare Books and Special Collections, later moving into the position of Associate Director at the AUC Library.
Lesley returned to the US in 1997 and a position as Bibliographer for Islamic Law at Harvard Law School, where she brought order to the collections.

As well as her professional occupations, Lesley was preeminent in establishing the Middle East Librarians Association and served on the board for a number of years. In her private life she was an inexhaustible traveler, giving papers at conferences around the world, taking part in the rehabilitation of Iraqi Libraries, camping in the deserts of the Middle East and on the lakes of Vermont. Lesley loved to relax by planting flowers in her garden. Lesley’s aim as a traveler was to set foot on every continent of the world and to step into every ocean. Her quest was completed when she traveled to Antarctica in 2003.

Lesley was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 but never allowed her sickness to diminish her drive or love of life. Her last major project was to categorize the many forms of communication assigned to papyrus and early paper in 10th century Egypt as part of her PhD dissertation. The results of her research will be published later by her husband, as a memorial to her.

The MELA family will sadly miss her insights, her vitality, her good will and her friendship.