Non-Western texts present special challenges when planning a digital text collection. In the case of texts
printed in Arabic, the challenges multiply because of varying fonts used in the printing process, these
dependent in the main on the date and country of publication.
A manuscript in Arabic and its modern critical equivalent will serve as the materials for this digitization experiment. Specific
sections from both texts will be scanned and processed to determine how much and how well Arabic text can be converted, via
Optical Character Recognition software, into searchable text.
The principal text chosen for this SCOPA project is the قانون في ألطب
(Canon of Medicine) from Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 428/1037). The
manuscript, copied in 1006 H./1597-98 A.D., is found in the Medical Historical Library at Yale and is cataloged as
Cushing Arabic ms. 5. The modern critical
edition is al-Qānūn fī al-tibb li-Abī `Alī al-Husayn ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn Sīnā. Bayrut : Mu'assasat `Izz al-Din, 1987.
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This is a new website for a SCOPA 2005 grant. The contents are a result of work
generously funded by SCOPA. Please browse the pages and
let us know your comments or questions.
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© 2007 Yale University Library
This file last modified 03/21/06
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