Dear all

Please note that the Mingana Collection does not relate purely to Islam. It contains over 3000 manuscripts in at least eleven languages, ranging from around the 6th to the 20th centuries. The collection is focused on manuscripts from the Middle East in Arabic, Syriac, Persian and Greek and has particular strengths in illustrated manuscripts, and early Islamic and Syraic and Arabic Christian materials. We are delighted here in Birmingham to make this important resource available to all Middle Eastern scholars and hope that in time more facsimiles will be added to the 71 manuscripts already searchable in the Virtual Manuscripts Room. 

Best wishes

David Pulford
Library Services Subject Adviser, Art History, Music Theology & religion and Philosophy
University of Birmingham
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-----Original Message-----
From: Middle Eastern and Islamic Library Collections and Bibliography [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mastan Ebtehaj
Sent: 09 July 2009 14:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Press Release: JISC helps bring Islamic resources online for the first time

FYI

The following was circulated to the "JISC announce list", by Rebecca O'Brien 
:

Press Release

JISC helps bring Islamic resources online for the first time

Two of the oldest known copies of the Qur'an will be available to 
researchers and scholars across the world today (July 8th 2009) - as part of 
a major project to digitise one of the richest collections of Eastern 
manuscripts.

The two Qur'ans, one of which may date from the 7th century A.D, are part of 
the priceless Mingana Collection, which is housed by the University of 
Birmingham.

The University's Special Collections department has painstakingly digitised 
more than 10,000 pages from the collection. As well as the Qur'ans the 
documents now online include unique illustrated manuscripts from the 16th 
century and early Arabic poetry. The project has been generously supported 
by JISC and The Edward Cadbury Charitable Trust.

Dr Peter Robinson from the Department of Theology, who has led the project,
comments: "We're delighted that for the first time some of the oldest and 
rarest Arabic manuscripts will be available for the public and scholars to 
view and enjoy.

"The Qur'ans are astonishing: one (number 1572) may date from within a 
century of the death of the prophet Mohammed.  This would make it one of the 
oldest copies of the Qur'an in existence. However, the collection also 
includes poetry, illustrated texts and even coins covering nearly 1000 
years.

"The process of digitising these fragile manuscripts can be painstaking, but 
the result is something that is a beautiful reproduction of the original."

The Mingana Collection is unique, spanning more than 3000 manuscripts in 11 
languages across nearly 1000 years of history. The team is now intending to 
continue the project to complete the digitising of the 3000 texts that make 
up the collection.

Another key part of the project is the Virtual Manuscript Room, which aims 
to make the manuscripts accessible to scholars and the general public across 
the world. This is done by embedding information about individual pages and 
passages of text.

By making searching for information far easier and more effective the 
Birmingham team hope that scholars will be able to comment on the works, add 
them to other websites and share them with the world.

Dr Robinson adds: "We don't want these fabulous documents to be a static 
archive that is hard to access and use.

"A collection like Mingana ought to be viewed, commented on and added to.
Technology provides an ideal opportunity to create an archive like that.

"We sometimes have very little information about the history of individual 
documents so we want to share them and get opinions and input from across 
the globe."

Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC said: "There is a lack of 
high-quality digital material available for those studying Islamic Studies.
The Mingana manuscripts, presented via the Virtual Manuscripts Room (VMR), 
will therefore be a valuable resource for researchers and teachers, both in 
the UK and internationally.

"Their presentation online is a crucial part of JISC's £1.8 million 
'enriching digital resources programme', a set of 25 projects which enhances 
the use of online content for teaching, learning and research."

The virtual manuscript room can be viewed at: http://www.vmr.bham.ac.uk Find 
out more about JISC's enrich digitisation programme at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitisation/enrichingdigi.aspx

Additional information about the University of Birmingham's Special 
Collections can be found at: http://www.special-coll.bham.ac.uk


**************************************
Mastan Ebtehaj
Librarian
St Antony's College
MEC
68 Woodstock Road
Oxford, OX2 6JF
U.K
Tel: +44 1865284764
Fax:               274529
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/areastudies/middle-east.shtml