Digital Library of the Middle East Prototype Federates Cultural Heritage Materials Worldwide
Washington, DC, January 31, 2018—The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) today released a prototype proof of concept for the Digital Library of the Middle East (DLME). The prototype was developed in partnership with the Antiquities Coalition, Qatar National Library, and Stanford Libraries, and in service to and collaboration with institutional and individual collaborators throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region.
This gold applique from the Achaemenid period, ca. 6th-4th century B.C., is among the items indexed in the DLME prototype. Gift of Khalil Rabenou, 1956. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Created with funding from the Whiting Foundation, the current prototype includes some 135,000 objects. The DLME will ultimately encompass text, video, photographs, archives, manuscripts, 3-D data, and maps illuminating the region’s history over 12 millennia, curated by scholars, specialists, and members of the living and vital cultures it represents. The platform, developed by Stanford Libraries, allows for the display of information in Romanized or Arabic forms.
“A digital bridge, like the successful platform prototype of the DLME, is a multidimensional bond, bringing together many countries, people, and perspectives to collectively celebrate the preservation, access, sustainability, and wonder of our cultural heritage,” said CLIR President Charles Henry.
DLME partners include cultural heritage organizations worldwide who aim to contribute to a globally available resource that provides detailed descriptions and images of artifacts, along with culturally nuanced information about the objects’ history and provenance. Scholars in Cairo, school-children in California and Ankara, travelers from Buenos Aires, and customs agents fighting artifact trafficking in Singapore, among others, will benefit from access to the DLME.
https://spotlight.dlme.clir.org/library
https://dlme.clir.org/2018/01/31/announcing-digital-library-middle-east-prototype/
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