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Overview
The Dutch publisher Brill has released a database of high-resolution color scans of Middle Eastern manuscripts collected by early Orientalist scholars from Leiden, held in the research collection at Leiden University Library. This database is referred to in full as Middle Eastern Manuscripts Online 1 (MEMO 1): Pioneer Orientalists, the Manuscript Collections of Scaliger, Raphelengius and Golius from the Leiden University Library.
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The Dutch publisher Brill has released a database of high-resolution color scans of Middle Eastern manuscripts collected by early Orientalist scholars from Leiden, held in the research collection at Leiden University Library. This database is referred to in full as Middle Eastern Manuscripts Online 1 (MEMO 1): Pioneer Orientalists, the Manuscript Collections of Scaliger, Raphelengius and Golius from the Leiden University Library.
The Leiden Orientalists who assembled the manuscripts were Joseph Justus Scaliger (d. 1609) and Jacobus Golius (d. 1667). Scaliger acquired at least a dozen manuscripts from the earlier collection belonging to Franciscus Raphelengius (d. 1597). Brill notes that 267 manuscripts in 303 volumes were selected for the database, totaling around 110,000 pages. The titles were selected by the project's academic advisor, Dr. Arnoud Vrolijk, Curator of Oriental Manuscripts and Early Printed Books at Leiden University. They represent one of the earliest collections of Oriental manuscripts in Europe. Many are rare, and a number of the manuscripts have become the basis for existing text editions. See Appendix Memo 1 Orientalists Title List for a full list of titles provided by the publisher.
Scans were made on site directly from the volumes by Harald Fisher Verlag (in publicity announcements Brill described this as being “filmed on site”, but they have confirmed that the process was direct scanning).
Brill has indicated that other MEMO projects are planned, but that these will not be supplements to the digitized collection of "Pioneer Orientalists" from the Leiden library. Hence the collection title MEMO I; this acronym unfortunately suggests more contemporary documents than the rare Renaissance era content assembled.
Delivery
All of the page images are presented as high-quality color images, with access files viewable in PDF and Deja-Vu format. Full documents can be downloaded as PDF zip files. There is no searchable text other than the fields in the item-level catalog records, some of which (but not all) include Library of Congress subject headings. Citations are provided to three published catalogs of the collection (including Catalogus Codicum Arabicorum Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-batavae or CCA and Catalogus Codicum Orientalium or CCO), as well as to the standard reference source on Middle Eastern literature, Carl Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Litterature (GAL). The publisher promises that the references to Brockelmann's GAL will be implemented as hyperlinks to the online version, also published by Brill.
It would be helpful to have more granular access points for this specialized content. The catalog records are searchable simply by author, title, place and date of “publication”; language; and a drop-down list of LC subject headings for those records which have headings. Browsing is provided only for author, title, or date. There is no additional or enhanced indexing.The publishers note the expense of producing metadata for manuscripts in non-Western languages:"For this project, only the Handlist produced by Voorhoeve was available to the publisher. For texts not mentioned in the Handlist, Brill had additional records produced by specialists."
It is particularly inconvenient that only limited amounts of the available catalog data are displayed in the various views. Individual catalog records are only displayed in browse mode; search results only provide a brief display of the catalog number, author, and title. Nor is the catalog record linked from the page images of the document. Search or browse history does not seem to be available, nor is it possible to refine search results.
Terms
The list price for MEMO 1 is $25,900, as of its October 2011 release.
Strengths and Weaknesses
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.
Reviewers
Center for Research Libraries
- Virginia Kerr - Digital Program Manager
Appendix
Title List
Title List for MEMO 1: Pioneer Orientalists
(374.94 KB)
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