MANAGING ARABIC TEXT DIGITIZING PROJECTS

Yale University Library and the American Association of Teachers of Arabic will co-sponsor a one-day workshop about project planning for the digitization of Arabic text. The workshop will take place on November 23, 2008 from 9 a.m. to 3 p. m. at the 2008 annual meeting of the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA). Registration is required.

This workshop is aimed at academics, language instructors, librarians, archivists, curators, and other information professionals who want to provide full text access to Arabic language material online. The workshop will provide project management information, based on the experience of U.S. universities, libraries, and other institutions, and give attendees essential information about the digitization of Arabic text materials..

The workshop will include a mixture of presentations on topics related to digitization projects, such as text or collection selection, copyright concerns, and staffing. The conversion of scanned images to searchable Arabic text will be explained using two software products specifically created for the Optical Character Recognition of Arabic text. In addition, attendees will learn about related technical topics such as metadata, formats, and preservation needs. Also, the instructors will demonstrate the AMEEL repository, which holds full text digital copies of scholarly journals from the Middle East.

This workshop is supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Education, under its Title VI TICFIA program and is part of the Project AMEEL grant (Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library). Additional support is provided by Yale University Library.

Location: Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Virginia C