As it is an ambition of mine to work with Asian collections
in the future, I was delighted to be invited to NACIRA annual conference,
topical on “redefining the audiences for Asian collections”.
I was really surprised to hear the interesting projects such
as the conservation and digitization of the Lewis-Gibson Genizah collection
between Oxford and Cambridge (which still sounds weird given their
history). However, Oliver Urquhart Irvine
from the British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership Project is one that
really caught my eye.
The idea of creating a completely online digital repository
rich with content about the history of the Gulf and Arabic Science, with
bilingual searches and metadata in English and Arabic, is something that hasn’t
really being thought of before on such a scale. Utilising project management
skills with digital humanities knowledge within libraries, I saw how the
project was split into phrases to include aspects of the library catalogue,
functionality via platform, and OCR software for search capabilities and
embedment for sound and GPS mapping (for digitalised maps). Followed by, the creating contingency plans
for challenges in public and staff communication, awareness and advocacy, plus
internal problems in spending alternations that affect technology and staff
turnover.
This ambitious project has really got me thinking about what
I could do with a qualification in librarianship. Simply from combining
traditional librarianship with digital means to not only conserve material
through data management from cataloguing, appropriate digitalisation,
translation, creation of authority files to content delivery, but also ensuring
the use of such information to encourage teaching and education e.g. changes in
politics, trade and global communication. This therefore means creating a
longer shelf life for digital libraries, from changing the culture of its use
and adapting to user social needs in web compatibility, simplicity in architectural
design and information content without overload.
Other projects into creating awareness for Asian
collections was also highlighted with projects for the Clay Sanskrit Library
for classical Indian literature and the Jainpedia project for the Jain faith.
