Transcript Al-Aqsa Mosque Library

Digitizing the Historical Periodical
Collection at Al-Aqsa Mosque Library in
East Jerusalem
November 2009
Qasem Abu Harb
Director of Archive Centre
Arab Studies Society; East Jerusalem
Project Coordinator
Introduction
 Collection of historical Palestinian newspapers and
periodicals at the Al-Aqsa Library in East Jerusalem
 Provides a rich source of information about the history of the
region and its people
 Documents the development of the Arab Press in Palestine
in the first half of the twentieth century
 Digitization project
 Aimed at preserving the historical periodical collection
 Supported by a grant from the Endangered Archives
Programme (EAP) at the British Library
Al-Aqsa Mosque Library
 Located in the Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old
City of Jerusalem
 Established in 1923
Al-Aqsa Mosque Library
 Reference library
 Serves the needs of researchers
and students from Jerusalem
and other Palestinian cities
 Contains monograph, periodical,
and manuscript collections
 2,000 manuscripts
 14,000 books including 2000
rare titles
 70 titles of Arabic language
newspapers and journals
Development of the Arab Press in
Palestine
 Palestinian press developed at
the turn of the 20th century
 Palestine under the Ottoman Empire
 Palestinians began to establish their
own printing presses
 Impact of the Christian publishing
houses
 Pre-war period: 1908 -1914
 Establishment of three major Arabic
language papers
 Al-Quds (1908, Jerusalem)
 Al-Karmil (1908,Haifa)
 Filastine (1911, Jaffa)
Title page of Filastine
Arab Press in Palestine
British Mandate Period
 More diverse publishing landscape
 Two leading pre-war papers reopen
 Al-Karmil and Filastine
 New Arab publications
 Mirat Al-Sharq
 Establishment of Muslim Arab papers
 Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah (Jerusalem, 1927)
 Al-Sirat Al-Mustaqim (Jaffa, 1925)
 Relative freedom of press during the
first decade of the British Mandate
(1919-1929)
Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah
Organ of the Supreme
Muslim Council
Arab Press in Palestine
British Mandate Period
 The Buraq riots of 1929
 Violent confrontations between Arabs and
Zionists
 Role of the press in inciting the public
 The new Publication Law of 1933
 Freedom of press restrictions
 Increasingly nationalistic tone of Arabic
language papers
 New papers established in the 1930s
 Al-Difa – “Defense”
 Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah –“Islamic Union”
 Confiscation of many papers during the Arab
rebellion of 1936-1939
 Closure of papers with the outbreak of WWII
Al-Jami’a AlIslamiah
Collection at the Al-Aqsa Mosque
Library
 Collection of historical newspapers
and periodicals at the Al-Aqsa Library
 Arabic language papers published in
Palestine and other Arab countries
 One of the largest collections of
Palestinian serial publications
 70 titles
 Many rare copies unavailable at other
institutions
 Preservation and access challenges
in managing the collection
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Deteriorating paper copies
Environmental damage
Lack of preservation program
Limited access to the library
Damaged page
of Al-Difa
Al-Zahra magazine
Project Goals
 Preservation
 Lack of preservation program
 Microfilm preservation strategies not available
 Digitization as a means of creating digital surrogate copies of
deteriorating newspapers for preservation purpose
 Preservation as the project’s primary goal
 Create digital archival copies
 Safeguard the collection housed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library from the
risk of physical deterioration and destruction
 Access
 Create multiple derivative copies
 Enhance indexing and searchability by creating searchable text
 Reduce handling of the fragile print materials
Selection
 24 titles
 13 newspapers and 11 journals and
magazines
 6699 issues
 53783 pages
 Dates: 1874-1951
 Example of a publication from the
Ottoman Empire period
 Al-Jinan (1874)
 Magazines from the pre-war period
 Al Hasna (1909-1912),
 Al-Muqtabas (1908-1916)
 Most of the publications from the British
Mandate period
Al-Jinan magazine
published in Beirut in1874;
distributed in Palestine
No.
Title in English
Title in Arabic
Periodical Type
Coverage
1 Majalet Rawdat al-Ma’arif
‫مجلة روضة المعارف‬
Magazine
1922-1923; 1932; 1934
2 Al-Kuliyya al-Arabia
‫الكلية العربية‬
Magazine
1927-1938
3 Al-Houkouk
‫الحقوق‬
Magazine
1923-1928
4 Al-Moktubas (Al-Muqtabas)
‫المقتبس‬
Magazine
1907-1912
5 Al-Arab
‫العرب‬
Magazine
1933-1934
6 Al-Jinan
‫الجنان‬
Magazine
1874
7 Al-Mahaba
‫المحبة‬
Magazine
1901
8 Al-Hasna
‫الحسناء‬
Magazine
1909-1912
9 Al-Zahrah
‫الزهرة‬
Magazine
1922-1926
10 Rawdat al-Maaref
‫روضة المعارف‬
Magazine
1326-1327 AH
11 Al-Fajr
‫الفجر‬
Magazine
1935
12 Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah
‫الجامعة االسالمية‬
Newspaper
1932-1938
13 Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah
‫الجامعة العربية‬
Newspaper
1932-1938
14 Al-Sirat Al-Mustaqim
‫الصراط المستقيم‬
Newspaper
1928-1936
15 Sawt al-sha’b
‫صوت الشعب‬
Newspaper
1928-1930; 1934
16 Al-Awqat Al-‘Arabiah
‫االوقات العربية‬
Newspaper
1935
17 Al-Liwa
‫اللواء‬
Newspaper
1935-1937
18 Tazwir Afkar
‫تصوير افكار‬
Newspaper
1909
19 Al-Muqtabas
‫المقتبس‬
Newspaper
1908-1912; 1915-1916
20 Al-Qabas
‫القبس‬
Newspaper
1913-1914
21 Al-Difa’
‫الدفاع‬
Newspaper
1934-1951
22 Falastin (Filastin)
‫فلسطين‬
Newspaper
1923-1937;1947-1951
23 Al-Iqdam
‫االقدام‬
Newspaper
1935-1936
24 Mirat Al-Shark
‫مرأة الشرق‬
Newspaper
1922-1936
Selection
 Major newspapers active in the Arab
nationalist movement during the British
Mandate period
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Filastine
Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah,
Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah
Al-Sirat Al-Mustaqim
Al-Liwa'
Al-Liwa' February 17, 1936
Organ of the Arab Party
 Variety of magazines and journals
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Al-Hasna – women’s literary and social magazine
Al-Zahra – literary magazine published in Jaffa
Al-Fajr - weekly cultural magazine
Al-Houkouk - monthly legal and scientific journal
Al-Kuliyya al-Arabia – educational journal
published by Arab College of Jerusalem
Cover page of Al-Fajr
magazine, June 1, 1935
Digitization Process
 Original paper copies as a source for digital images during the
digitization process
 Image capture conducted in-house on the grounds of the AlAqsa Library
 Image capture equipment
 ATIZ BOOK Drive system with two digital cameras
 Each scanned page treated as a separate image and saved as
an archival master in the TIFF format
 Project guidelines based on digital library standards and best
practices
 Use-neutral approach with the notion of digital master files and
derivatives
Digitization Guidelines
 The standards established for the digitization process:
 Resolution: 300 dpi
 File Format: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format )
 Compression: None
 Bit-depth: 8-bit greyscale for black and white newspapers
24-bit RGB (Red-Green-Blue) for pages with
colour images
 Consistent file naming convention
 File names consist of a project code (EAP119), unique newspaper
code (three letters) followed by year (four digits), month (two digits),
day (two digits), and page numbers (two or three digits starting with
zero), for example:
EAP119_arb19330414_01 for the first page of
the issue of Al-Arab published on April 14, 1933
Archival Master Files
 Images created as a direct result of the image
capture process
 Preservation-quality digital copies
 Minimum image processing
 Saved as uncompressed TIFF files
 A source for creating multiple derivative copies
 Two copies of each digital master in the TIFF format
 The first set of archival TIFF files stored at the Al-Aqsa
Mosque Library
 The second set deposited at the British Library according
to the Endangered Archives Programme requirements
 Extensive documentation for preservation purpose
Derivative Files
 Images created from archival master files for access
 Available for in-house reading and printing
 PDF (Portable Document Format) format
 Digital surrogates of original publications
 Unavailable online at this point
 Creating derivative files
 Readiris Pro 11 Middle East edition software
 Capable of recognizing Arabic language characters
 Performs OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and converts
images into searchable files
 Creates derivative files in the PDF format
 Limitations of the software
 Low OCR accuracy
Preservation and Documentation
 Preservation
 Digital archival files for preservation purpose
 Derivative files aid preservation by reducing the handling of
paper copies
 Documentation
 Extensive documentation for preservation purpose
 Recorded on multiple levels
 Project – EAP 119 Preservation of historical periodical collection
(1874-1951) at the al-Aqsa Mosque Library in East Jerusalem
 Institution – The Al-Aqsa Mosque Library
 Collection – The Newspaper and Periodical Collection and the AlAqsa Mosque Library
 Individual publications – title in Latin and Arabic, dates and
frequency of publication, format, and publishing history
 Publishers
 Deposited at the British Library
Challenges
 Image capture
 Large newspaper format
 Poor quality of print originals
 Torn and smudged pages
 Irregular fonts
 Newspaper layout
 Poor quality of OCR for the Arabic language
 Lack of infrastructure for online delivery
 Budget shortfalls
Questions?
Qasem Abu Harb
Director of Archive Centre
Arab Studies Society , East Jerusalem
Project Coordinator at the Al-Aqsa Library
[email protected]