JISC

Yale University Library and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) seek to improve online access to trans-Atlantic collections of digitized manuscripts, manuscript catalogs, and dictionaries by creating a virtual archive, open and freely accessible, for researchers working in the field of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.

Overview

This project responds to needs identified in the 2008 Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)report entitled “Review of User Requirements for Digitised Resources in Islamic Studies,” prepared and submitted to JISC by the University of Exeter.

Aims and Objectives

This project aims to:

• Create an integrated set of full-text digital resources supporting manuscript research from manuscript catalogues and dictionaries, many of which exist only in printed form withpublication dates from the19th century, by converting materials in Arabic, Persian, and Western scripts (primarily Latin, German, Spanish, and French) and depositing these intosearchable repositories;
• Augment existing digital collections of Arabic and Persian manuscripts by scanning,depositing, and indexing selected Yale- and SOAS-held historical manuscripts, which highlight the contribution made to world knowledge by Arab philosophers, physicians, and scientists;
• Develop an infrastructure to integrate manuscripts with related reference resources by building a suite of tools that will analyze digitized materials and construct internal crossreferencesfor connecting the materials in the archive. The tools, which are to include cross-collection searching, will enable patrons to explore the united collections simultaneously. Further, they will serve as a scalable and extensible model for other special collections and libraries rich in manuscripts and related reference materials.