1.2 A two-fold problem

Preservation:
- Active destruction of cultural artifacts: iconoclasm, neoliberalism
- Neglect: fragile materiality
Access:
- Absence / destruction of infrastructure / channels of knowledge transmission: lack of access to institutions, hardware, software, internet connections
- widely-dispersed collections
- technologies: absence of reliable OCR
- technical skills: lack of basic scripting skills

The consequence is a focus on “high” culture and canonical texts

1.3 State of digitisation

gray online libraries / “crowd”-sourced transcriptions, e.g. al-Maktaba al-Shāmila, Mishkāt, Ṣayd al-Fawāʾid, al-Waraq etc.
- lack of / faulty metadata
- unknown editing principles
- unknown quality
- very limited structural mark-up
- cannot be reliably cited
Digital imagery, e.g. Endangered Archives Programme (EAP), HathiTrust, Institut du Monde Arabe.
- lack of metadata
- limited licences, paywalls
- no or very bad text layers

1.3.1 state of digitisation: text

al-Muqtabas on al-Maktaba al-Shāmila

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

al-Muqtabas 6 on EAP

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

al-Muqtabas 6 on HathiTrust without US IP

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

al-Muqtabas 6 on HathiTrust with US IP

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

al-Muqtabas 6 on HathiTrust, state of OCR (only visible to US IPs)

2. Suggested solution: Unite facsimile and transcription

2.1 Aims and principles

aims
- validate the transcription against the facsimiles
- improve the transcription with the help of the “crowd”
- make everything citable for scholars, linkable for machines
- provide the new edition with the broadest possible licence to facilitate access and re-use
principles
- re-purpose available and established tools, technologies, and material
- preference for open and simple formats and tools

2.2 Deliverables

Basis:
1. XML/TEI editions with their own schema
  - text links to open-access digital facsimiles
  - licenced as CC BY-SA 4.0
2. Structured bibliographic metadata (MODS, BibTeX)
3. Tools to
  - scrape full text / bibliographic information from the web
  - convert scraped information into TEI, MODS, BibTeX
  - improve the TEI mark-up

2.2 Deliverables

Core features:
1. Social digital edition hosted on GitHub: gradually improve transcription and mark-up
2. Releases are archived at Zenodo and receive a DOI
Sugar on top:
1. Static web-view (doesn’t require a permanent internet connection) providing side-by-side view of facsimiles and text
2. Access to bibliographic metadata through a public Zotero group

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

3. test case: The journal of al-Muqtabas

al-Muqtabas / المقتبس

“monthly” journal published by Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī between 1906 and 1918/19 in Cairo and, from 1908 onwards, in Damascus.
- 9 volumes, 96 issues (at least 2 double issues), c. 7000 pages
Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī (1876-1952): Ottoman bureaucrat, journalist, president of the Syrian Academy of Sciences, minister of education.
available at c. 30 libraries (North America, Europe, Middle East):
- original prints (mostly incomplete)
- some copies of a “gray” reprint
- a number of microfiche copies from a single source

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

Web-view of al-Muqtabas 6(2)

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

TEI file of al-Muqtabas 6(2) in oXygen: author mode

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

TEI file of al-Muqtabas 6(2) in oXygen: plain XML

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

Project scheme

3.1 Basis: Generate the TEI edition

scrape the digital text from shamela.ws
transform it into TEI XML: semi-automatically (mostly XSLT)
- documented URI design to reference all elements
add structural mark-up (sections, articles, heads, authors …): semi-automatically
link to digital facsimiles from the British Library’s “Endangered Archives Programme” (EAP) and HathiTrust or produce your own imagery: semi-automatically (mostly manually)
host everything but images on GitHub
- distributed version control
- attribution of authorship
provide a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence for all files: edition, tools, webview

3.1 Basis: TEI files

<text xml:id="text" xml:lang="ar" type="issue" n="i62">
    <pb ed="print" n="177" facs="#facs_181" xml:id="pb_2.d1e1489"/>
    <front xml:lang="ar" xml:id="front_1.d1e1431">
         <div type="masthead">
            <bibl>
               <tei:biblScope unit="issue" n="3">الجزء 3</tei:biblScope>
               <tei:biblScope unit="volume" n="6">المجلد 6</tei:biblScope><lb/>
               <title level="j" xml:lang="ar">المقتبس</title>
            </bibl>
         </div>
    </front>
    <body xml:id="body_1.d1e1485" xml:lang="ar">
        <pb corresp="file:../epub/26523/OEBPS/xhtml/P4092.xhtml" ed="shamela" n="n62-p1" xml:id="pb_1.d1e1487"/>
        <div type="article" xml:id="div_2.d1e1491" xml:lang="ar">
            <head xml:id="head_1.d1e1493" xml:lang="ar">الفتوى في الإسلام</head>
            <p xml:id="p_15.d1e1496" xml:lang="ar">تابع ل <ref target="oclc_4770057679-i_61.TEIP5.xml#div_2.d1e1517" xml:id="ref_5.d1e1694">ما في الجزء الماضي</ref></p>
            <div type="section" xml:id="div_2.d1e1499" xml:lang="ar">
                <head xml:id="head_2.d1e1501" xml:lang="ar">آداب المستفتي وصفته وأحكامه</head>
                <div type="section" xml:id="div_2.d1e1504" xml:lang="ar">
                    <head xml:id="head_3.d1e1506" xml:lang="ar">الأول</head>
                    <p xml:id="p_16.d1e1509" xml:lang="ar">المستفتي كل من لم يبلغ درجة المفتي فهو فيما يسأل عنه من الأحكام الشرعية مستفت بتقليد من نفسه.</p>
                    <p xml:id="p_17.d1e1512" xml:lang="ar">والمختار في التقليد أنه قبول قول من يجوز عليه الإصرار على الخطاء بغير حجة على عين ما قبل قوله فيه.</p>
                    <p xml:id="p_18.d1e1515" xml:lang="ar">ويجب عليه الاستفتاء إذا نزلت به حادثة يجب عليه علم حكمها.</p>
                    <p xml:id="p_19.d1e1518" xml:lang="ar">فإن لم يجد ببلده من يستفتيه وجب عليه الرحيل إلى من يفتيه وإن بعدت داره وقد رحل خلائق من السلف في المسألة الواحدة الأيام والليالي.</p>
                </div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </body>
</text>

3.1 Basis: Is this legal?

External sources, external labour, and the question of copyright

3.1 Basis: Is this legal?

text of al-Muqtabas
- is in the public domain: transcription and imaging is legal.¹
- the transcribers do not / cannot claim copyright: copying is legal
images of al-Muqtabas
- digital files are protected by copyright: use is subject to licence, linking is legal
- download and redistribution: almost certainly illegal
digital edition of al-Muqtabas
- all our work is licenced as CC BY-SA 4.0

3.2 Core feature: Continuous improvement

A social and GitHub-hosted digital edition

3.2 Core feature: Continuous improvement

Improvements depending on human labour (probably a “crowd”)
- correct the transcription
- add structural mark-up
- add semantic mark-up
Automatic improvements:
- provide reliable bibliographic metadata based on the facsimile
- mark-up of natural entities with link to external reference files (e.g. personal names, toponyms)

3.2 Core feature: how to contribute

Go to GitHub and register a free account
Fork the edition’s repository: https://www.github.com/openarabicpe/journal_al-muqtabas
Edit the text (XML)
Send us a pull request
We will review and merge your changes

Branches on GitHub

3.3 Sugar on top: web-view

Adaptation of TEI Boilerplate XSLT stylesheets
human-readable and static web-view (either rawgit or gh-pages)
- generated on-the-fly by the user’s browser using XSLT to transform the TEI XML files.
- can be run without an internet connection and with local facsimiles.
parallel display of text and facsimile
- simple changes to display different facsimiles
link to metadata on the article level (MODS, BibTeX)
the code is shared with a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence on GitHub

3.3 Sugar on top: web-view

Display of al-Muqtabas 6(2)

3.3 Sugar on top: Zotero group

Zotero group “OpenArabicPE”: list view

3.3 Sugar on top: Zotero group

Zotero group “OpenArabicPE”: item view

4.2 Simple statistics of authorship

{
    "articles": [
        {
            "total": "4"
        },
        {
            "articles": "1",
            "pages": "9",
            "urls": [
                "https://rawgit.com/tillgrallert/digital-muqtabas/master/xml/oclc_4770057679-i_41.TEIP5.xml#div_3.d1e692"
            ],
            "year": "1909"
        },
        {
            "articles": "2",
            "pages": "14",
            "urls": [
                "https://rawgit.com/tillgrallert/digital-muqtabas/master/xml/oclc_4770057679-i_58.TEIP5.xml#div_5.d1e2156",
                "https://rawgit.com/tillgrallert/digital-muqtabas/master/xml/oclc_4770057679-i_59.TEIP5.xml#div_4.d1e2087"
            ],
            "year": "1910"
        },
        {
            "articles": "1",
            "pages": "18",
            "urls": [
                "https://rawgit.com/tillgrallert/digital-muqtabas/master/xml/oclc_4770057679-i_68.TEIP5.xml#div_8.d1e1669"
            ],
            "year": "1911"
        }
    ],
    "name": "يوسف جرجس زخم"
}

ongoing work

Editorial decisions: TEI schema design
- mark-up of some textual features has not yet been decided
Editorial work:
- mark-up of page breaks (1-2 h per issue)
- correcting transcriptions
- add non-Arabic words omitted by shamela.ws
- add footnotes
- correct publication dates for all issues.
Web-display:
- needs some polishing
- search functions beyond the Zotero group and individual issues (project can be searched on GitHub)

simple, fast, sustainable

Simple technologies and relatively little coding needed: Initial set-up took less than four weeks of after-hour labour
Hosting with GitHub is free
Core (but simple) features cannot be automated:
- all c.7000 page breaks must be manually tagged
Code can be re-purposed:
- We set-up the sister project Digital Ḥaqāʾiq as a digital edition of ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Iskandarānī’s monthly journal al-Ḥaqāʾiq (1910–12, Damascus) in a single day.

Summary

open scholarly digital editions of [Majallat] al-Muqtabas and al-Ḥaqāʾiq providing
- TEI XML files (transcription and links to facsimiles)
- plain text files
- MODS and BibTeX files for every article
- customised version of TEI Boilerplate (XSLT and CSS) with stable URLs for every element
within a framework (git, GitHub, Zenodo) that allows for / provides
- collaborative, open, version-controlled improvements of the edition
- re-use of the text
- long-term preservation and DOIs

even in the US as attested to by HathiTrust↩

Open Arabic Periodical Editions (OpenArabicPE)

1. Introduction

1.1 Importance of mundane texts / periodicals

1.2 A two-fold problem

1.3 State of digitisation

1.3.1 state of digitisation: text

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

1.3.2 state of digitisation: images

2. Suggested solution: Unite facsimile and transcription

2.1 Aims and principles

2.2 Deliverables

2.2 Deliverables

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

3. test case: The journal of al-Muqtabas

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

3. Test case: digital Muqtabas

3.1 Basis: Generate the TEI edition

3.1 Basis: TEI files

3.1 Basis: Is this legal?

3.1 Basis: Is this legal?

3.2 Core feature: Continuous improvement

3.2 Core feature: Continuous improvement

3.2 Core feature: how to contribute

3.3 Sugar on top: web-view

3.3 Sugar on top: web-view

3.3 Sugar on top: Zotero group

3.3 Sugar on top: Zotero group

4. Use cases

4.1 Reviewed works

4.2 Simple statistics of authorship

5. To do

ongoing work

5. Experiences

simple, fast, sustainable

Conclusion

Summary

Thank you!