(Nagy)_Digital_Library_of_Modern_History_of_Egypt.ppt

Magdy Nagi 06 Bibliotheca Alexandrina 1

GENERAL COUNSEL Director
CORPORATE
SECRETARIAT
ACADEMIC
& CULT AFF.
Internal Art
Program
Antiquities
Museum
Manuscripts
Museum
Planetarium &
Sc. Museum
ISIS
Nat. Cent. For
Manuscripts
Arts Center
EXTERNAL
RELATIONS
Pub. Relations
Tours
Media
ICT
Department
INFO & COMM
TECHNOLOGY
FAP
Financial
Department
Administrative
Department
Personnel
Department
Internal Security
Department
Engineering
Department
LIBRARY SERVICES
SPECIAL ADVISORS
Library Depart
INTERNAL AUDIT
CULTNAT
Cent. For Writing
&Calligraphy
Cent For Res.
&Spec Prog.
Cent For Alex &
Med Studies.

ISIS - Mission & Goals
 Mission
– Initiate, carry-out and promote research and development
of activities and projects related to building a universal
knowledge center
– Acting as an incubator for digital and technological
projects, promoting and nurturing innovations in
accordance with BA goals
 Goals
– Preserving the heritage for future generations, and
– Universal Access to Human Knowledge

DAR
Digital Assets Repository

Goals
 Automation of the digitization process
 Integrating the actual content and metadata of
varieties of object types into one homogeneous
repository
 Preserving and archiving digital media produced by
the Digital Lab or acquired by the Library in digital
format
 Enhancing the interoperability and seamless access
to the Library digital assets

Standards
 Digital objects descriptive metadata
– VRA Core Categories
– MARC 21
 Metadata presentation
– XML
– MARC format
– Dublin Core
 Content dissemination
– OAI-PMH

System Architecture

DAK - Digital Assets Keeper
 Acts as a repository for digital material
 The material is either produced by the Digital Lab
or introduced directly in a digital format
 Data describing digital files are automatically
extracted from the files
 Descriptive metadata is either manually assigned to
the digital object by the librarians, or retrieved from
external source of metadata.

DAK - Data Model
Collection
Visual
Object
Work
Digital
Object
Owner
Set

DAK - Metadata
 Descriptive Metadata
– Common to all types of Works and Visual Objects: Title,
Creator(s), Date(s), Keywords, Description, Dimensions,
Location, etc.
– Specific to some types: Book ISBN, Statue Material, etc.
 Digital Content Metadata
– Image resolution, dimensions, profile, or video duration
 Archiving Metadata
– Archiving location of a Digital Object file
– Physical location where the Visual Object can be found
in the owning institution

DAK - Metadata
 Publishing Metadata
– Path of the published Digital Object on the server
– Date of publishing, duration of publishing
– Category of targeted users e.g. students, researchers, etc.
 Access Right Metadata
– Copyright statement linked to the Visual Object
– Access right level: viewing metadata only - viewing
metadata and thumbnail - viewing metadata and excerpt
of the contents - viewing metadata and full access to the
contents

DAF - Digital Assets Factory
 Authentication and Authorization Metadata
– User identification data
– Permissions assigned to a group of users on the Visual
Object or the Collection level
 Governs the digitization process of the Library
collection at the Digital Lab
 Goals:
– Provide a database system to keep track of the
digitization process
– Keep track of digitized materials, unifying the naming
conventions and exhaustively checking the produced
folders and files for consistency

DAF - Digital Assets Factory
 Goals (cont’d):
– Provide timely reports to various levels of management
describing the workflow and the current status of a
certain asset at the Digital Lab
– Apply necessary encodings on the scanned materials to
be suitable for electronic publishing
– Manage archiving and retrieval of digitized material

DAF - Metadata
 Digitization Metadata
– Scanning date(s)
– Scanning operator(s)
– Processing date(s)
– Processing operator(s)
– OCR font data
– Accuracy achieved by the OCR before and after learning

Digitization Process – Books

DAK Publishing Interface
 http://dar.bibalex.org

 Web-based application
 User: Public user
 Providing access to the repository content through
search and browse facilities
 Multilingual full-text search

 Functionalities
– Browse the repository
contents by Collection,
Work type, Visual Object
type, Subject, Creator and
Title
– Search content by an
indexed metadata field
– Multilingual full-text
search using both exact
and morphological
matching

 Functionalities (cont’d)
– Display brief record
information
– Display full record
information with
links to digital
objects

– Hyperlinked data
fields that can
invoke searches e.g.
by keywords,
subjects and creator
– Display records in
MARC, DC or
XML formats

– Generic digital assets
viewer that supports
different file formats;
PDF, DJVU, Images,
Video and Audio
– Different levels of
zooming for images in
addition to thumbnail
view for a set of
images

Integration with the ILS
 The integration module is fully configured based on
– A record unique identification
– Metadata mapping table
– Data model mapping scheme
– Synchronization schedule

The Digital Modern
History Of Egypt

The Digital Library of History of
Egypt
 Build an integrated digital library of the modern
history of Egypt
 Collection of specialized libraries
 Objective
– Scan;
– Catalog;
– Index;
– OCR, and
– Publish the collection in a searchable form to its users.

Gamal Abdel Nasser
Collection

Nasser – Objectives
 Digitize and publish the collection of the eminent
Arab and Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser
 Provide online access to his collection through a
web based system mainly intended for research
purposes and documentation

Nasser – Collection
 Documents published by the Public Records Office,
London, UK (around 1,540 topics)
 Documents published by the United State
Department of State (16 volumes of 7,965)
 Over 1,300 speeches given by the President, in both
audio and printed format
 Over 51,000 photos and 1,000 portraits of the
President
 More than 1,000 videos (over 50 hours)
 A complete archive of the articles published in the
newspapers

 The decrees issued by the Revolutionary
Command Council (RCC)
 The daily news of the President
 Minutes of the Central Committee for Arab
Socialist Union (ASU)
 More than 143 handwritten documents with 593
papers
 A complete archive of the special articles
"Bisaraha" by the Egyptian writer and journalist
Mr. Mohammed Hassanein Haikal

 Caricature, stamps, coins and plastic arts
illustrations
 Books written by and about Nasser
 More than 1,000 national songs
 138 Poems
 The collection was scanned, cataloged, indexed and
subjected to OCR

 The entire collection was presented in a web based
interface with full text Arabic and English search
 Integration of all the different information sources
and media under a single interface and a fully
searchable form

Nasser – Website

Nasser – Speeches
 1,359 speeches
 Covering years from 1952 to 1970
 Audio and Text
 Speeches and metadata stored in a database
 Web-based search engine
 Arabic full text search
 Managing the contents through a
backend application

Nasser – Speeches

Nasser – Photos
 51,512 photos
 1,124 portraits
 Covering 6,409 events from 1930 to 1985
 Photos and metadata stored in a database

Nasser – Photos

Nasser – Photos
 Backend application
– Managing the contents
– Categorizing photos
– Adding and refining descriptions
– Adding keywords

Nasser – Videos
 1,190 videos (over 50 hours)
 Processed to be streamed on the Internet
 Metadata stored in a DB

Nasser – Documents
 Egyptian
 British
 American

Nasser – Egyptian Documents
 Nasser Days

 Nasser Handwritten
– More than 143 handwritten documents in 593 papers

 Central Committee for Arab Socialist Union – ASU

 The decrees issued by Revolutionary Command
Council (RCC)

Nasser – British Documents
 Around 1,200 documents
in more than 53,000
pages
 Covering years from
1919 to 1970
 Digitized & OCRed
 Documents & metadata
are stored in a database

 Web-based Search Engine
 Full text search
 Providing access to the contents

 Backend application
– Managing the contents
– Categorizing documents within a reference
– Adding and refining scopes

Nasser – American Documents
 16 volumes consisting of 7,968 documents
 Covering years from 1978 to 1951
 Digitized & OCRed
 Full text search on the titles and contents

Nasser – American Documents

Nasser – Bisaraha
 A complete archive of the special articles "Bisaraha" by the
Egyptian writer and journalist Mr. Mohammed Hassanein
Haikal

Nasser – Culture
 A number of items representing the effect of Nasser
on the culture of the region
– 50 rare stamps
– 125 caricatures
– 34 plastic arts illustrations
– 38 commemorative and circulating coins
– More than 1000 national songs
– 138 Poems
– 3 Books written by and about Nasser

Nasser – Culture

Nasser – General Search
 Search all collections

Nasser – Future Work
 Publishing the added a “Happened at same day”
feature
 The Nasser News Archive with more than 4,000
articles (about 10,507 images) were processed and
indexed. The archive is currently being reviewed by
Nasser Foundation prior to publishing

Anwar El-Sadat
Collection

Sadat – Objectives
 Digitizing and documenting Sadat’s
epoch, to raise the national awareness and
enhance our internal solidarity necessary
to confront globalization challenges
 Provide the collection in a searchable
form for historians, politicians and
researchers to analyze and study one of
most important transitional periods Egypt
has encompassed

Sadat – Progress
 An agreement has already been finalized with President
Sadat’s family to digitize the collection
 Negotiations are currently taking place with newspaper
agencies, museums and others to receive their collections
 A team is being formed for the indexing of the pictures
collection and another team to sort and evaluate documents
and other information resources available
 A workflow has been designed and is being tested for
digitization of the pictures, documents, audio and video
recordings and other information resources, associating
metadata with each item, and incorporating the output into
DAR

Sadat – Future Work
 Digitizing the pictures available associating them with their
metadata
 Digitizing documents available in the collection
 Publishing the digitized collection through browsing
application featuring searching and navigation tools

Digitizing of the Botroseyya
Collection

Botroseyya – Mission
 In the context of preserving the modern history of
Egypt, this project aims at digitizing the documents
pertaining to the Egyptian Botros Ghaly family

Botroseyya – Overview
 The family held high and critical positions in the Egyptian
government throughout the past 200+ years and thus
contributed to formulating a great deal of the Egyptian
history
 The family has saved a large number of documents (about
15,000) related to its political role since the late 1800’s
 The project will attempt to digitize the entire multilingual
(Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Persian,
Osmanly, Latin and Turkish) collection and provide it in
searchable form for historians, politicians and researchers

Botroseyya – Progress
 Agreement finalized with the Botros Ghaly family to
digitize the collection
 A team was formed and trained for the indexing of the
documents, led by the Director of the BA Media
Department
 A workflow has been implemented and is being used
for digitization of the documents, associating metadata
with each document

Botroseyya – Future Work
 Digitizing the 15,000 documents and associating
them with their metadata
 Digitizing pictures available with the collection
 Digitizing the special collection of Botros Botros
Ghali
 Publishing the digitized collection through a
browsing application featuring searching and
navigation tools

Digitization of
Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha
Collection

Collection – Mission
 This project aims at digitizing the
documents pertaining to Mohamed
Mahmoud Pasha, one of the most
famous Egyptian Prime Ministers
 The project will attempt to digitize the
entire collection of very rich and rare
historical documents and materials that
have never been published before and
provide it in searchable form for
historians, politicians and researchers

Collection – Progress
 Agreement finalized with Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha’s
family to digitize the collection
 A team was formed and trained for the indexing of the
picture collection, led by the Director of the BA Media
Department
 A workflow has been designed tested and deployed for
the digitization of the pictures, associating metadata
with each picture

Collection – Future Work
 Digitizing the pictures available in 12 albums and
associating them with their metadata
 Digitizing documents available in the collection
 Publishing the digitized collection through
browsing application featuring searching and
navigation tools

Dar Al Hilal

Dar Al Hilal
 Al-Hilal is considered the oldest cultural journal in the
Arab world, and the only regular journal that has been
issued for more than a hundred years
 It had a marked effect on the history of the Arab world
in general and the history of Egypt in particular
 It played a leading role in modernizing Arab
intellectual thinking, and opened new collaborations
towards the cultural evolution

Dar Al Hilal – Objectives
 Publish a digital copy of the issues of Al-Hilal
magazine following an agreement concluded between
the BA Manuscript Center and Dar Al-Hilal (the
magazine publisher)
 The issues of each decade will be compiled on a CD
and provided with necessary browsing and searching
tools

Dar Al Hilal – Progress
 ISIS decided to re-digitize the printed version of the
collection because of the poor quality of the original
one available on a microfilm
 The volumes of years 1 to 60 were completely scanned,
processed and indexed (about 51,000 pages)
 An application was implemented for browsing through
the digital copies with searching facilities. The
hierarchy for titles and subtitles helps users select the
desired issues

Dar Al Hilal – Future Work
 Finalize the digitizing and indexing of the remaining
volumes
 Compiling the issues of each decade on a CD including
necessary browsing and searching tools

Revival Of
L’Institut D’Egypte

L’Institut d’Egypte
 Between 20 and 22 August 1798, less than two
months after landing at Alexandria, the young
Napoleon Bonaparte, with some famous scholars
and some young enthusiasts, set up the Institut
d’Egypte in Cairo

 Its first scholars were in-charge of the research,
study and publication of physical, industrial and
historical facts about Egypt and were to produce the
Description de l’Egypte
 A focal point for intellectual pursuit in Egypt, the
Institute is the oldest functioning academy of
sciences and arts outside Europe

 Monge, Fourier, Berthollet,
Caffarelli, Saint–Hilaire and
mathematician Louis Costaz–
all members of the National
Institute–joined René
Desgenettes and Antoine–
François Andreossy in helping
to formulate the purpose,
regulations and composition of
the new academic society

 The Institute summarized their research in its own
journal, La Decade Egyptienne. In addition, it
printed a newspaper, the Courrier d’Egypte which
offered specific details about the work of Scientific
and Artistic Commission and the Institute
 The Institut d’Egypte became the focal point for scholarly
work in Egypt, and provided both actual space and structure
for scholarly discourse

 In 1802, Bonaparte ordered the Imperial Press to
begin publishing the visual record
 The monumental work was published, in parts,
between 1809 and 1822, in 20 volumes, known as
the Imperial edition

Progress and Future Work
 BA has suggested 9 projects for its revival, among
which is a project of digitizing its entire collection
 The effort has started with the digitization of
– 10 volumes of Description de l’Egypte
– Other special collections such as:
• Complete works of Voltaire (69 volumes)
• Des Mille Nuits et Une Nuit (16 volumes)
• Geographie Universelle (15 volumes)

Description De L’Egypte

 The Description de l’Egypte was the outcome of the
collaboration of more than 150 prominent scholars and
scientists who accompanied Napoleon, many of who were
members of l’Institut d’Egypte.
 They systematically examined almost every aspect of
contemporary and ancient Egyptian civilization.

 During the 20-year process, the talents and industry of some
2,000 mechanics, draftsmen, cartographers, typographers
and engravers, proved that nothing similar had ever been
attempted before.
 It gave an illustrated account of Egypt’s historic, cultural,
artistic and religious treasures.
 It also described the topography and provided a detailed
description of the flora, fauna and mineralogy of the
country.

 Every aspect of Egyptian life known during that period was
precisely and accurately described.
 It included over 900 plates (hand-colored copperplate-
engravings) and some 3000 illustrations representing an
exhaustive record of Egyptian history, architecture,
antiquity, geography, natural history, botany and the
humanities.
 It is found in various editions of varying numbers of
volumes: often at least 9 volumes of text, and 11 volumes of
plates.

 In 1802, Bonaparte ordered the
Imperial Press to begin publishing
the visual record. The monumental
work was published, in parts,
between 1809 and 1822, in 20
volumes, known as the Imperial
Edition.

 The first edition proved so
popular that the second
edition, also known as the
Royal Edition, was published
in Paris, by C. Panckoucke
from 1821–1829, comprising
26 text volumes and 11 plates
volumes.
 The impact of this masterpiece was enormous; it directed the
attention of the world to the Pharonic and Muslim Civilization
in Egypt, giving birth to modern Egyptology.

As a result, the country’s daily life, natural
history and antiquity had a lasting influence
on the arts in Europe and the world.

 Today, with the efforts of ISIS, the preservation of this
valuable collection has been possible.
 The complete volumes of plates and text have been fully
digitized, integrated on a virtual browser and made
accessible to the public through this remarkable and
inspiring project.

 The project is composed of two stages:
– The first project stage was completed in October 2004 where
the application was provided on DVD in high resolution with
French and English interfaces
• A tool was developed to publish books in the standard extended
markup language (XML) format where books may be browsed
by a virtual browser or touch screen
• The relation between the text and images were also established
and rendered in a searchable form
– In the second stage, the whole collection is to be available in
an integrated searchable form on the web

 The work includes
– 11 plates volumes (950 pages)
– 9 text volumes (7500 pages)
– Index book
 The volumes recorded
– Antiquities
– Modern state
– Natural history
 They described cities,
buildings, temples, monuments,
arts, animals, plants, minerals,
society, etc.

Virtual Browser – Home Page

Virtual Browser – Interface
 Ancient look and feel
 Featuring 3D
 Interactive animations
 Iconic representations
 Harmonized screens
 Help assistance

Virtual Browser – Functions
 Small movable control panel
 Transparent to maintain pages view
 Dynamic loading of large image sizes
 Supporting different shapes

Virtual Browser – Functions

Virtual Browser – Text Screen
 Text Volumes
– Nine Text Volumes
• Antiquities Descriptions
• Antiquities Memoirs
• Modern State
• Natural History
– Index book

Virtual Browser – Text Screen
Comprehensive information about modern
Egyptian society as well as Egypt’s physical
environment and natural resources were all
documented, making what was then the
largest publication in the world.
Virtually all of Egypt’s patrimony was
systematically cataloged, mapped and
meticulously described, from the obelisks to
the vast statues on the banks of the Nile, as
well as the country’s flora and fauna.

Virtual Browser – Plates Screen
 Plate Volumes
– 11 volumes of plates
– Recorded in three sections + Atlas
• Antiquities
• Modern State
• Natural History

Virtual Browser – Plates Screen
 Hundreds of artists participated to
produce more than 3,000 illustrations in
a large size (approximately 52  71 cm)
format.
 The illustrations cover wide-ranging
themes such as:
– Historical constructions;
– Flora and fauna;
– Landscapes;
– Customs of the inhabitants;
– Industries, commerce, agriculture,
and goods for daily use.

Virtual Browser – Search
 A search facility was completed and enhanced to
link search results with both text and plate volumes.
 It is now possible to find the plates associated with
the search item along with its descriptive text in
addition to occurrences of the search item within
text volumes.

Future work
 The whole collection will be available in an
integrated searchable form on the web

Awards
 The project was nominated by the jury of the Stockholm
Challenge Award as finalist for the 2006 Challenge (Culture
category) as well as the WSIS Challenge Award
 A total of 1155 projects registered in the six categories that
are available in the 2006 award. Out of those, 151 finalists
were selected from 53 countries
 The WSIS Challenge Award is a side event within the
Stockholm Challenge program

Awards
 The WSIS Challenge Award for African projects attracted
128 registrations, of which 118 were accepted for
evaluation. Out of those, 30 finalists were selected
 Dr. Magdy Nagi, Head of ICT Sector, was awarded on
behalf of BA, a Diploma for Excellence in the use of
Information Technology in the Culture Category of the
Stockholm Challenge 2006
www.stockholmchallenge.se

AlexandriaMonuments
ScriptsDocumentation

Alexandria Monuments
 Documentation of Alexandrian Monuments’ Scripts is a
system developed at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to
document scripts written on Pharonic, Greek, Coptic and
Islamic Monuments of Alexandria
 The project will document information about Alexandrian
monuments and their related scripts including pictures,
transliterations and translations and will provide them in a
web-based searchable form for researchers

Alexandria Monuments –
Progress
 The BA team has designed and implemented a database for
metadata, transliterations, translations and pictures
 A workflow has been implemented and is being used for
documenting monuments' metadata and scripts on it
 The team is currently working on designing the web
interface for final publication

ISIS Website

Questions
Questions
Questions
Questions
Questions
Questions
Questions
Questions
Questions

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