MEMO 1: Pioneer Orientalists

It will be important for researchers to have high quality digital reproductions of this seminal and rare collection of early Middle Eastern manuscripts assembled in one resource, with flexible format options for viewing and downloading the images. It is very promising that the publishers have archived the database contents with Portico as well as with the Dutch National Library.

However, the search, browse, and results display tools could be significantly enhanced to improve access. Essentially MEMO 1 is a collection of good quality facsimile reproductions, not a fully functional database.

Early comments following the announcement of this release have been critical of the price. The extent of the content and features offered also compares unfavorably with another online manuscript collection: Parker Library on the Web distributed by Harrassowitz. The Parker Library database of early English manuscripts contains nearly twice as many titles also scanned in color, and offers many additional features, but is priced at less than half the cost of MEMO 1. Perhaps the grant funding and terms of the partnership between two academic libraries helped to maintain a lower purchase price for the Parker Library project, which also has an open access version available (with limited features).

As noted above, MEMO 1 contains limited search and browse fields, while Parker Library on the Web provides multiple indexes for the page-imaged titles using specialized manuscript cataloging fields such as rubrics and incipits (first words). Also, while the Parker Library database provides a bibliography of more than 6,000 secondary sources, MEMO 1 apparently links to only one standard, mid-20th century bibliographic reference work, Brockelmann's GAL. Brockelmann Online is also published by Brill; presumably links to it will be somewhat easier to consult than the printed volumes of bio-bibliographic entries whose arrangement has been described as quite problematic.