Computer-Based Arabic Manuscript Management

Abstract

During the 1987/88 academic year an Arabic manuscript microfilm project at Boutilimit, Mauritania, under sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Illinois, completed the first phase of a library preservation program with the filming of some 25.5 lineal feet/8.1 lineal meters of Arabic manuscripts (or slightly over 100,000 folios of material) on eighty-five reels. This filmed collection is available to researchers at the University of Illinois Library Archives. In contrast with what, alas, is a norm in Arabic manuscript acquisition and cataloging, and thanks to a computer program developed for this project, within four months of the termination of the filming an interim 352-page bilingual finding aid was generated for the 937 records involved. Following corrections to that finding aid in the field and additions to the collection during the 1988/89 year, indices in Arabic and English will be generated from the program. The rapidity with which this collection has thus become accessible for researchers is fairly dramatic, and the program developed for the project may well point to ways in which other comparable data sets may be efficiently managed. This description will focus on the objectives of the finding aid, the technical outline of its development, the experience to date with its application, and possible future uses for the system.