Posts By:

A user guide to the Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981

Posted on by
Comment

In 2017, the McGill Library acquired Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981, a database of Primary Source documents examining events such as the Arab-Israeli War, the Lebanese Civil War, and the Iranian Revolution. This collection of files from the United Kingdom Foreign Office (i.e. diplomatic correspondence, minutes, reports, political summaries and personality profiles) is a invaluable tool for researchers focusing on the history of the Middle East during the 1970s.

The Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981 is available through the McGill Library A-Z database list.

It includes three modules focusing on different time periods:

  1. 1971-1974: the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the Oil crisis
  2. 975-1978: the Lebanese civil war and the Camp David accords
  3. 1979-1981: the Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war

An essay introducing this historical period by Professor Michael Gasper, including links to relevant documents within the collection, can be read here.

The Popular Searches page shows a list of most important people, places and topics covered by the documents. A simple click on any name or topic will lead to a list of documents in which they appear.

The collection can also be discovered through the gallery of maps, linking back to the original documents from which they come.

Dreams of a Nation

Posted on by
Comment

Started in the 1990’s, Dreams of a Nation is a Columbia University based archival project aiming at preserving and promoting Palestinian cinema. If the initial collection was only composed of films screened in courses taught at Columbia on Middle Eastern cinema, it has now grown to include hundreds of films, carefully described and indexed on the Dreams of a Nation website. Dreams of a Nation archive and database in this website were sponsored by Columbia University Middle East Institute, and facilitated by dedicated librarians. The website is now maintained by the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University.

The DOAN archive can easily be explored by filmmakers or by titles indexed in alphabetical order.

Dreams of a Nation resulted in the organization of two Palestinian film festivals held in 2003 and 2204, and the publication of a book entitled Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema authored by Dr. Hamid Dabashi (Verso, 2006).

As described by Dr Hamid Dabashi, Dreams of a Nation is a work in progress “committed to two principle objectives:

  • expanding and preserving our archive with the goal of making it the largest collection of Palestinian cinema possible–feature, short, and documentary–and (2)
  • providing a solid database documenting Palestinian cinema for contemporary use and for the posterity.”

Farabi Digital Library

Posted on by
Comment

IRCICA Farabi Digital Library is a project aiming at facilitating and supporting libraries make their digital collections available to worldwide scholars. To do so, IRCICA developed a  stand alone software allowing libraries to easily display their digital materials, and hosts the digital library.

Some of the most respected Turkish libraries are using the Farabi software: Atatürk Library, Beyazıt State Library and Süleymaniye Library. And IRCICA is opened to establish new partnerships, develop new kinds of cooperation, and provide support to any library that has a digital collection.

The Farabi Digital Library provides access to a great number of books, periodicals, photographs, postcards, maps, mostly in Ottoman Turkish, French and English. In order to access the full content of the digital library, visitors need to create a free account. Once logged in, it is possible to browse, read, listen and -if available- obtain a translation of the item consulted into sixteen different languages. Although the translation is far from being of the highest quality, the feature will be appreciated by students or researchers lacking language skills, but still wanting to get a broad sense of the topic of a page.

The Farabi Digital Library proposes two viewers looking different but offering exactly the same features (display, flip pages, enlarge, search, and share) are available: the Farabi Reader, and the Flip Book reader. Digital materials are full-text searchable in original script.

The digital library can be searched in English with refining options (by Institution, media type, author, date, publisher, language or subject) offered in the left-hand side menu. In addition, it is possible to save searches, and add selected items to a list to a list of Favorites.

The interface is available in both Turkish and English.

L’Afrique en cartes: Gallica.fr

Posted on by
Comment

The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) recently added to Gallica digital library a rich collection of historical maps of Africa. L’Afrique en cartes includes almost a thousand maps dating from the 14th to the 20th century.

The maps collection can be accessed, browsed, and searched either by date, or by geographical location (countries or colonial entities). Maps are scanned in very high definition, allowing for thorough on-screen examination. Download (in pdf), sharing and printing are permitted, and visitors can even order a reproduction for a fee.

Note that Gallica only makes available materials published before 1948 so that they are out of copyright. The website is in French.

Directory of Free Arab Journals (DFAJ)

Posted on by
Comment

The Directory of Free Arab Journals (DFAJ) is an initiative of Middle Eastern Open Access activists aiming at producing a directory of all open access (OA) scientific journals produced in Arab countries. DFAJ currently includes 250 journals  from 172 publishers in 17 Arab countries. The directory is published under a CC-BY-NC license. Initially launched in 2013, a new version was released in March 2017.

Currently, DFAJ offers the following features:

  • a listing of all Arab scholarly journals that are openly available on the internet
  • hyperlinks to the listed journals and their publishing organizations
  • standard information such as ISSN, publisherp, country of publication, frequency, keywords, etc.
  • a journals’ browsing by field/discipline capability, as well as an advanced search feature
  • a form to suggest new journals
  • information about the peer-review process as well as indexing in international databases (Scopus & Directory of Open Access Journals)
  • the ability to create a personal account to save favorite journals

According to the directory’s owners, future developments include:

  • making the interface bilingual Arabic-English (it is only in Arabic)
  • transforming the current website in a portal steering discussion about, and advocating for open access in the Arab Middle East
  • providing guidance for editors and publishers on how to create and maintain OA journals
  • suggesting repository management software.

Koç University Manuscript Collection

Posted on by
Comment

Some 299 manuscripts in Ottoman Turkish, Turkish, English, French, Latin, Arabic and Persian on a variety of topics from Koç University Collection are now available online. Stored on Koç University institutional repository, the scans are accompanied by extremely detailed and lengthy descriptions.

Navigation features include two menus located on the right-hand side of the book viewer: a thumbnails menu, and a content menu. Digitized manuscripts only open in the book reader with the possibility to enlarge full screen, fit to window, or rotate pages. Unfortunately it is not possible to download or save the digitized manuscripts. The resolution of images is however high enough to allow a thorough examination of items on-screen.

koc-university-manuscript-collection

An open archive of Etchmiadzin/Էջմիածին

Posted on by
Comment

Etchmiadzin (Էջմիածին) magazine has been published since 1944 by the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Including records of the Armenian Church, as well as Armenian studies articles, it is considered to be the continuation of another monthly journal entitled “Ararat” which was founded in 1868 by the Catholicos Gevorg IV.

All issues of Etchmiadzin have been digitized and are accessible on the journal’s website. Users can browse either by year, subject (English search terms) or author. They can also search the entire archive using the search box at the top right of the pages or the advanced search feature.

Documents are available as high definition color PDFs, and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence permitting download, printing, reuse, modification, distribution, copy as long as the original authors and source are properly cited.

Arabic-Islamic Textual Practices in the Early Modern World, 13-15 July 2017, الفيلولوجيا العربية الإسلامية بعد حقبة التأسيس

Posted on by
Comment

Dahlem International Network Research Group “Arabic Philology and Textual Practices in the Early Modern Period” will be holding an international conference in Berlin (Freie Universitat) from July 13 to 15  2017.

Entitled “What was Philology in Arabic? Arabic-Islamic Textual Practices in the Early Modern World”, this conference will bring together scholars from Europe, North America and the Middle East. The full program, and practical information can be found on the Conference’s website.

Call for papers: Islam & Science, an educational approach

Posted on by
Comment

The Science & Islam project will be holding its second conference from July 4-9, 2017 at the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan.

As indicated on the conference website, the “purpose of this conference is to provide a forum for philosophical and theological work by Muslim and Christian philosophy or theology graduate students and early career professors”.

Note that “Submissions are restricted to Muslim graduate students and early career professors from any middle eastern country as well as from Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan and India”.

For more information, click here.