Category Archives: Digital Libary

Middle East Women’s Activism

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Middle East Women’s Activism (MEWA) is a digital collection of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library that includes the recordings of audio interviews conducted in 2013 and 2014 by Nicola Christine Pratt, a Politics and International Studies Professor at the University of Warwick. These interviews served as the basis of a publication entitled Embodying Geopolitics: Generations of Women’s Activism in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. A complete description of professor Pratt’s research project and field trip can be found on the ‘About‘ page. The full list of interviews (94 in total) is available through SOAS Library catalogue:

Depending on the age of the individual, narratives include details about women’s contributions to the early years of post-independence state building, the impact of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, women’s participation in revolutionary and radical movements in the 1970s, including the Palestinian National Movement, women’s roles in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990, the rise of NGOs and women’s involvement in the 2011 uprisings.

https://digital.soas.ac.uk/mewa/about/

At the time of our visit, MEWA only included fifteen interviews -mostly in Arabic- with Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese women activists from different generations. One can assume that more interviews will be added overtime. Ranging from 30 minutes to one hour in length, the recordings can be listened to directly from the digital collections platform:

In addition to the audio recordings, English transcripts (when interview was conducted in English) or English translations (when interview was conducted in Arabic) are available in different formats. Visitors can move from one view to another using the tabs menu at the top of the page.

PDF View
Page Images View
Thumbnails View

Another interesting feature included in MEWA is the option to visualize the exact location where the interview was conducted:

Each interview is thoroughly described in a variety of standardized formats making it easy for anyone who would want to reuse it:

Standard View
MARC View
METS/MODS View
MARC XML View

It is also possible to download all items related to an interview from the same page. Downloads include:

  • the description in word (docx)
  • the transcript in pdf
  • the audio recording in mp3, ogg and wav.

Last, visitors can access usage statistics of each interview published on MEWA:

This digital audio archive will appeal not only to scholars but also members of the general public.

Wikilala: an Ottoman digital library

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Started in 2019, Wikilala is a digital library making available and full-text searchable documents printed between 1729, when Ibrahim Müteferriqa founded the first Turkish printing Press and the letter revolution in 1928. The project was launched by Hiperlink‘s (first Turkish digital library) project manager, Sadi Özgür, and an academic member at the History Department of Istanbul Aydın University that acted as a consultant, Harun Tuncer.

Wikilala aims “to enable researchers and enthusiasts studying in almost all branches of science, such as culture, art, history, literature, architecture etc. to rediscover even the smallest details in order to illuminate a landscape that has been dimly lighted for two centuries. (…) Wikilala allows (…) to access this huge storage of knowledge.”

“About” page, Wikilala (URL:https://www.wikilala.com/about)

According to the description on the “About” page, Wikilala includes thousands of books, magazines, journals, newspapers,etc. that have been digitized in high-resolution, catalogued, and OCR’ed (i.e. Optical Recognition Character) to allow for full-text searchability. The project also include the “latinization” of texts to allow people who don’t have command of Ottoman Turkish to search the texts in Latin script.

To access Wikilala materials, visitors need to create an account (which is free with an institutional email). Once logged-in, the entire library becomes available.

From the main page (captured above), users can search the library in Latin or Arabic scripts (thanks to a handy multilingual and multialphabets virtual keyboard), or pre-select the type of documents they want to search/read: Newspapers, Journals, Books, Manuscripts and Documents.

From the results page, users will be able to sort the list in the order they want (alphabetical, chronological, etc.) and/or refine the list using the filters available in the right-hand-side column.

There are two methods to open documents: clicking on the Read Now button at the bottom right of the item’s page, or scrolling down to the thumbnails view: both options will open Wikilala’s viewer. The viewer is limited to online reading and full-text search: unfortunately, it does not offer download, saving or printing options. Perhaps will this be a future development?

Wikilala is a platform developed by a private company named hiperkitap, that works on numerous other products individuals and institutions can subscribe to or purchase. McGill can trial it for free until the end of 2021: take advantage of it!

The interface is available in both Turkish and English.

University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriot Library: Middle East Digitized Collections

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University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriot Digital Library offers over 350 digital collections, containing over 1 million digital photographs, maps, books, videos, audio recordings, and other items. Among these collections are the Middle East Digitized Collections.

I. ARABIC PAPYRUS, PARCHMENT, AND PAPER
The Arabic Papyrus, Parchment & Paper Collection is the largest of its kind in the United States, The collection was acquired by Prof. Aziz Suriyal Atiya, founder of the Middle East Center and the Middle East Library.

Time Period: A large number of pieces date to the period between 700 and 850 CE. The collection includes a significant number of documents from the pre-Ottoman period.

Collection size: It contains 770 Arabic papyrus documents, 1300 Arabic paper documents, and several pieces on parchment.

Coverage: A unique source on the political, economic, religious and intellectual life of Egypt during the first two centuries of Islamic rule and the period up to Ottoman domination.

II. AZIZ SURYAL ATIYA PAPERS
Dr. Aziz S. Atiya was the founding director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. He was the author of many books and articles and editor of the Coptic Encyclopedia.

Time period: Papers document the life and work of Aziz Atiya (1927-1993)

Coverage: Papers include curriculum vitae, memorabilia, and personal correspondence and financial records. Also include materials relating to his career as a teacher, scholar and author, including lecture notes, student papers, publication contracts, royalty information, materials relating to the publication of the Coptic Encyclopedia, articles, newsletters, offprints, clippings, research files and maps.

III. MIDDLE EAST COLLECTION
Highlighted in this collection is an eighteenth century Quran produced in Bukhara and a Persian manuscript of poetry by a Mughal princess.

Time period: dating from as early as 800CE/183AH

Collection size: 3,000 printed books from and about the Middle East.

Coverage: It includes manuscripts in Arabic, Coptic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish.

Items in these collections can be downloaded, shared on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, reference URL is also included.