November 2009

Qasem Abu HarbDirector of Archive Centre

Arab Studies Society; East JerusalemProject Coordinator

Digitizing the Historical Periodical Digitizing the Historical Periodical Collection at Al-Aqsa Mosque Library in Collection at Al-Aqsa Mosque Library in

East JerusalemEast Jerusalem

IntroductionIntroduction Collection of historical Palestinian newspapers and

periodicals at the Al-Aqsa Library in East Jerusalem Provides a rich source of information about the history of the

region and its people Documents the development of the Arab Press in Palestine

in the first half of the twentieth century

Digitization project Aimed at preserving the historical periodical collection Supported by a grant from the Endangered Archives

Programme (EAP) at the British Library

Al-Aqsa Mosque LibraryAl-Aqsa Mosque Library Located in the Haram al-Sharif compound in the Old

City of Jerusalem Established in 1923

Al-Aqsa Mosque LibraryAl-Aqsa Mosque Library Reference library

Serves the needs of researchers and students from Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities

Contains monograph, periodical, and manuscript collections 2,000 manuscripts 14,000 books including 2000

rare titles 70 titles of Arabic language

newspapers and journals

Development of the Arab Press in Development of the Arab Press in PalestinePalestine

Palestinian press developed at the turn of the 20th century Palestine under the Ottoman Empire Palestinians began to establish their

own printing presses Impact of the Christian publishing

houses

Pre-war period: 1908 -1914 Establishment of three major Arabic

language papers Al-Quds (1908, Jerusalem) Al-Karmil (1908,Haifa) Filastine (1911, Jaffa) Title page of Filastine

Arab Press in Palestine Arab Press in Palestine British Mandate PeriodBritish Mandate Period

More diverse publishing landscape Two leading pre-war papers reopen

Al-Karmil and Filastine

New Arab publications Mirat Al-Sharq

Establishment of Muslim Arab papers Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah (Jerusalem, 1927) Al-Sirat Al-Mustaqim (Jaffa, 1925)

Relative freedom of press during the first decade of the British Mandate (1919-1929)

Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah Organ of the Supreme

Muslim Council

Arab Press in Palestine Arab Press in Palestine British Mandate PeriodBritish Mandate Period

The Buraq riots of 1929 Violent confrontations between Arabs and

Zionists Role of the press in inciting the public

The new Publication Law of 1933 Freedom of press restrictions

Increasingly nationalistic tone of Arabic language papers New papers established in the 1930s

Al-Difa – “Defense” Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah –“Islamic Union”

Confiscation of many papers during the Arab rebellion of 1936-1939

Closure of papers with the outbreak of WWII

Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah

Collection at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Collection at the Al-Aqsa Mosque LibraryLibrary

Collection of historical newspapers and periodicals at the Al-Aqsa Library Arabic language papers published in

Palestine and other Arab countries One of the largest collections of

Palestinian serial publications 70 titles Many rare copies unavailable at other

institutions

Preservation and access challenges in managing the collection Deteriorating paper copies Environmental damage Lack of preservation program Limited access to the library Al-Zahra magazine

Damaged page of Al-Difa

Project GoalsProject Goals Preservation

Lack of preservation program Microfilm preservation strategies not available Digitization as a means of creating digital surrogate copies of

deteriorating newspapers for preservation purpose Preservation as the project’s primary goal

Create digital archival copies Safeguard the collection housed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library from the

risk of physical deterioration and destruction

Access Create multiple derivative copies Enhance indexing and searchability by creating searchable text Reduce handling of the fragile print materials

SelectionSelection 24 titles

13 newspapers and 11 journals and magazines 6699 issues 53783 pages

Dates: 1874-1951 Example of a publication from the

Ottoman Empire period Al-Jinan (1874)

Magazines from the pre-war period Al Hasna (1909-1912), Al-Muqtabas (1908-1916)

Most of the publications from the British Mandate period

Al-Jinan magazine published in Beirut in1874;

distributed in Palestine

No. Title in English Title in Arabic Periodical Type Coverage

1 Majalet Rawdat al-Ma’arif المعارف روضة مجلة Magazine 1922-1923; 1932; 1934

2 Al-Kuliyya al-Arabia العربية الكلية Magazine 1927-1938

3 Al-Houkouk الحقوق Magazine 1923-1928

4 Al-Moktubas (Al-Muqtabas) المقتبس Magazine 1907-1912

5 Al-Arab العرب Magazine 1933-1934

6 Al-Jinan الجنان Magazine 1874

7 Al-Mahaba المحبة Magazine 1901

8 Al-Hasna الحسناء Magazine 1909-1912

9 Al-Zahrah الزهرة Magazine 1922-1926

10 Rawdat al-Maaref المعارف روضة Magazine 1326-1327 AH

11 Al-Fajr الفجر Magazine 1935

12 Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah االسالمية الجامعة Newspaper 1932-1938

13 Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah العربية الجامعة Newspaper 1932-1938

14 Al-Sirat Al-Mustaqim المستقيم الصراط Newspaper 1928-1936

15 Sawt al-sha’b الشعب صوت Newspaper 1928-1930; 1934

16 Al-Awqat Al-‘Arabiah العربية االوقات Newspaper 1935

17 Al-Liwa اللواء Newspaper 1935-1937

18 Tazwir Afkar افكار تصوير Newspaper 1909

19 Al-Muqtabas المقتبس Newspaper 1908-1912; 1915-1916

20 Al-Qabas القبس Newspaper 1913-1914

21 Al-Difa’ الدفاع Newspaper 1934-1951

22 Falastin (Filastin) فلسطين Newspaper 1923-1937;1947-1951

23 Al-Iqdam االقدام Newspaper 1935-1936

24 Mirat Al-Shark الشرق مرأة Newspaper 1922-1936

SelectionSelection Major newspapers active in the Arab

nationalist movement during the British Mandate period Filastine Al-Jami’ah Al-Arabiah, Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiah Al-Sirat Al-Mustaqim Al-Liwa'

Variety of magazines and journals Al-Hasna – women’s literary and social magazine Al-Zahra – literary magazine published in Jaffa Al-Fajr - weekly cultural magazine Al-Houkouk - monthly legal and scientific journal Al-Kuliyya al-Arabia – educational journal

published by Arab College of Jerusalem Cover page of Al-Fajr

magazine, June 1, 1935

Al-Liwa' February 17, 1936Organ of the Arab Party

Digitization ProcessDigitization Process

Original paper copies as a source for digital images during the digitization process

Image capture conducted in-house on the grounds of the Al-Aqsa Library Image capture equipment

ATIZ BOOK Drive system with two digital cameras Each scanned page treated as a separate image and saved as

an archival master in the TIFF format Project guidelines based on digital library standards and best

practices Use-neutral approach with the notion of digital master files and

derivatives

Digitization GuidelinesDigitization Guidelines The standards established for the digitization process:

Resolution: 300 dpi File Format: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format ) Compression: None Bit-depth: 8-bit greyscale for black and white newspapers

24-bit RGB (Red-Green-Blue) for pages with colour images

Consistent file naming convention File names consist of a project code (EAP119), unique newspaper

code (three letters) followed by year (four digits), month (two digits), day (two digits), and page numbers (two or three digits starting with zero), for example:

EAP119_arb19330414_01 for the first page of

the issue of Al-Arab published on April 14, 1933

Archival Master FilesArchival Master Files Images created as a direct result of the image

capture process Preservation-quality digital copies

Minimum image processing Saved as uncompressed TIFF files

A source for creating multiple derivative copies Two copies of each digital master in the TIFF format

The first set of archival TIFF files stored at the Al-Aqsa Mosque Library

The second set deposited at the British Library according to the Endangered Archives Programme requirements

Extensive documentation for preservation purpose

Derivative FilesDerivative Files Images created from archival master files for access

Available for in-house reading and printing PDF (Portable Document Format) format Digital surrogates of original publications

Unavailable online at this point Creating derivative files

Readiris Pro 11 Middle East edition software Capable of recognizing Arabic language characters Performs OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and converts

images into searchable files Creates derivative files in the PDF format

Limitations of the software Low OCR accuracy

Preservation and DocumentationPreservation and Documentation

Preservation Digital archival files for preservation purpose Derivative files aid preservation by reducing the handling of

paper copies Documentation

Extensive documentation for preservation purpose Recorded on multiple levels

Project – EAP 119 Preservation of historical periodical collection (1874-1951) at the al-Aqsa Mosque Library in East Jerusalem

Institution – The Al-Aqsa Mosque Library Collection – The Newspaper and Periodical Collection and the Al-

Aqsa Mosque Library Individual publications – title in Latin and Arabic, dates and

frequency of publication, format, and publishing history Publishers

Deposited at the British Library

ChallengesChallenges Image capture

Large newspaper format Poor quality of print originals

Torn and smudged pages Irregular fonts

Newspaper layout Poor quality of OCR for the Arabic language Lack of infrastructure for online delivery

Budget shortfalls

Questions?Questions?Qasem Abu HarbDirector of Archive CentreArab Studies Society , East JerusalemProject Coordinator at the Al-Aqsa Library

2001 .qasem @yahoo com