Iraq ReCollection: A Proposal for Preserving Iraq's Cultural Heritage

FAIN: PI-50027-06

Yale University (New Haven, CT 06510-1703)
Ann G. Okerson (Project Director: October 2005 to April 2008)

Digitizing the complete runs of nine journals (104,590 pages) in humanities disciplines published in Arabic from 1911 to the present that document the prehistory, history, and culture of Iraq; creating catalog records for these serials; developing an open-archives searchable database; and making these materials available on the World Wide Web.

Project Iraq ReCollection will digitize a select group of scholarly Iraqi journals held by Yale and the University of Pennsylvania including the complete runs of 9 journals published in Arabic to create an electronic archive of these digitized files that permits retrieval and display via the Internet, and integration into other existing electronic systems, so that scholars in Iraq and around the world can easily gain access to this important segment of Iraq's print heritage. The small project will also develop an approach and best practices for scanning Arabic and Middle-East language-based humanistic content in order to facilitate access to scarcely held and disappearing materials for a key world region.