Exhausting but Not Boring—and Rather Exciting: The Process and Politics of a Documentation and Digitization Project in Jerba, Tunisia

Abstract

Abstract: The Jerba Libraries Project (JLP) was an initiative carried out between 2019 and 2021 to document and digitize private and public collections of Arabic manuscript and early print collections on the island of Jerba, Tunisia. In this article, we present the project's aims, its achievements, and the obstacles it faced for those considering embarking on similar projects. We also use the example of this project to argue that manuscript documentation and digitization projects like it must speak to local actors, both engaging and benefitting them. We begin by explaining the origins of the project's pilot in 2017. In addition to generating a methodology for documenting and digitizing textual materials, the pilot allowed the project team to establish connections and build a reputation on the island that was important for acquiring local supporters and participants. We describe the methodology itself as followed in JLP, including some of the challenges faced by the team. To make the results of the project more concrete, we offer some quantitative data on its outcomes and a short qualitative example. We close with the perspectives of different team members on the impact and politics of projects like the JLP: public engagement, the labor behind the production of the images, the users of the images, and the knowledge produced from them.