MENALIB - the Virtual Library Middle East / North Africa

First results of a project started in October 2000

Lutz Wiederhold, Sibylle Wegener

The MENALIB concept

In October 2000, Halle University Library took up work on the project MENALIB aimed at developing the technical basis for a "Virtual Library Middle East / North Africa". The project has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in the context of the program "Die Virtuelle Fachbibliothek". Funding will continue until October 2002.
The term "virtual library" has been in use for about 20 years now, one of the first references is attributed to A. J. Harley (British Library’s Lending Division) in 1980 (1). Since then, various approaches to the concept of virtual library have been discussed. Some of these concepts were focused more on technical, others on organizational aspects of virtual libraries (2) .
MENALIB has attempted to combine the technical and organizational aspects of a virtual library by creating tools that, in the future, will enable librarians, university departments, scholarly societies and other information providers to publish and communicate on its WWW-site and to contribute to the growth of databases, adding relevant information for Middle East studies. MENALIB started out from the assumption that a centralized presentation of information available through a multitude of local information providers would serve the user better than the chaos of countless isolated information providers in the WWW. MENALIB, like other virtual libraries, therefore, builds on the continuing participation of many individuals and institutions at many different places.
MENALIB also supports the concept of the hybrid library, i.e. it is not confined to the creation of, and information on digital resources, but also includes access to resources hitherto available only in print. However, as MENALIB is based on the idea that for both digital and printed resources the WWW will be the most important information channel in the future, it will represent printed resources in digital form as bibliographic information, image file, or digitized text.

Using the WWW as information and communication channel for Middle East Studies

The rapid growth of the WWW poses a great challenge to libraries and librarians. There are various aspects to this challenge. In the context of a virtual library for Middle East studies some of the following technical and organizational aspects are of particular importance: When planning a virtual library, the following aspects of using the WWW as a channel for scholarly information apply equally to all who work in library and information fields irrespective of their particular fields: The list presented above is by no means complete and provides only a partial impression of the problems that have to be addressed when developing a virtual library for Middle East studies.

Aims and tools of MENALIB

The primary objectives of MENALIB are: The following tools have been or will be developed in order to realize these objectives: Furthermore, a new classification scheme of the special subject collection Middle East / North Africa has been developed in order to be able to classify printed and electronic resources according to one classification.
Some of these tools were developed before the start of the project MENALIB, others like, for example, ALMISBAH, the database of WWW-resources have been created since the project started in October 2000.

ALMISBAH - a database of WWW-resources on and from the Middle East

In the past, selection and compilation of WWW-resources have resulted in numerous link lists, often maintained by scholars, librarians, students and others for a limited period of time only, as work on link lists often comes to an end with changing responsibilities and research interests. In many cases, criteria for selecting a particular WWW-site and adding it to a particular link list remain unclear. Also, WWW-resources are presented in different kinds of order in these link lists. Usually, search for websites dealing with a particular topic is not supported by search engines. The only option to find WWW-sites concerning a particular topic in such link lists is the search function of the browser software.
In view of this situation, MENALIB has started to develop a database for relevant WWW-resources. The working title of this Database - ALMISBAH (arabic: the lamp) - symbolizes the hope that information provided by the database will light up the way to the relevant WWW-resources in the field of Middle East studies. Since October 2000, ca. 1.500 links have been selected for the database. To all these links a set of metadata has been added.
There are different metadata schemes for online resources (4). MENALIB, like other projects of virtual libraries in Germany, follows the proposals as formulated by the Dublin Core (DC) Metadata Initiative.
The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set consists of fifteen core elements, each of which may be extended by use of Scheme, Type and Language qualifiers.
In ALMISBAH, several other categories are added to the DC elements. These "MENALIB categories" include statistical data and an evaluation of the resource. Some internal categories are produced for database administration only and are not visible to the user.

Dublin Core Element Set MENALIB Metadata Set (5)
1. Tiltle Title
2. Creator Author, Editor
3. Subject Keywords, classification scheme of the special subject collection, Basisklassifikation, DDC, [LOC Classification]
4. Description Description
5. Publisher Publisher, Distributor
6. Contributor

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7. Date Date
8. Type Type
9. Format Format of data
10. Identifier URL, ISSN/ISBN
11. Source Source type
12. Language Language
13. Relation Derived from...,Contained in..., Mirrors
14. Coverage Coverage
15. Rights Access, Restriction, Remarks
16.

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 Course
17.

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 Country code
18.

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 Contents (Evaluation)
19.

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 Clarity (Evaluation)
20.

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 Indexing (Evaluation)
21.

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 Links (Evaluation)
22.

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 Level (Evaluation)
23.

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 Size (Statistics)
24.

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 Backlinks (Statistics)
25.

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 Notes (Statistics)

Authors of WWW-sites are required to provide at least some basic metadata. However, the majority of WWW-sites so far selected by MENALIB did not contain metadata that could be added to the database without review. Therefore, in many cases, metadata have to be produced by librarians or other qualified staff before adding new links to ALMISBAH. All the metadata produced by MENALIB are provided in English and available by full-text-search. However, the element "Title" provides the title of the WWW-site in the language that is predominantly used by the author of the WWW-site.
Transliteration of Arabic and other non-roman scripts follows regulations of the ALA (American Library Association)-LC romanization tables (transliteration schemes for non-roman languages). In verbal description of sources compiled in ALMISBAH, MENALIB refers to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). However, in order to allow user intuitive search, subject headings consisting of two or more words are divided into single words. A list of all keywords used in ALMISBAH - offering alternatives to keywords used in the search process without success - is available to the user.
In addition to the search function, the user may also access online resources in ALMISBAH by selecting a certain source type (e.g. websites of university departments, libraries, journals, maps etc.) - using the source type catalog - or a particular subject - using the subject catalog based on the classification scheme of the special subject collection.
As to the classification of WWW-resources, MENALIB will apply Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) which is favoured also by other libraries participating in the program "Die Virtuelle Fachbibliothek". Application of the LOC-Classification as a classification scheme widely used in academic libraries throughout the U.S. might enhance searchability of WWW-resources in ALMISBAH and is therefore another option.
In a long time perspective, producing comprehensive metadata for relevant WWW-resources will make sense only if relative durability of these data is guaranteed or if there will be ways of updating data with relatively little effort. ALMISBAH contains a tool for automatic control of broken links. The database checks all URLs registers disappearance of WWW-sites and informs the staff responsible for updating about such changes. During the first six months of ALMISBAH only a very small percentage of metadata had to be modified.

MENALIB - possibilities of cooperation

With ALMISBAH, the project MENALIB has realized a sound technical structure for a "Special Subject Guide Middle East / North Africa" as described in a paper presented to the 22nd annual meeting of MELCOM International, Venice 2000 (6). Work on this tool will continue with the aim of developing new features enabling the database to process UNICODE data and to integrate also selected metadata (e.g. "Title") in Arabic or other Middle Eastern scripts.
However, cooperation with other libraries and research centres is welcome already now. External contributors may send links and add important metadata by using an electronic form. After evaluation of suggested links, further metadata are added if necessary and the links are incorparated into ALMISBAH (see also the button "your suggestions" on the homepage of MENALIB).
Like the subject guide ALMISBAH, the entire information gateway MENALIB is designed to serve as a cooperative tool for information on Middle East studies. Cooperation in the MENALIB framework is possible in many different ways, for example by It is hoped that, by providing access to a multitude of local information providers, MENALIB will be able to support the development of a network for Middle East studies in the future and that consultation of MENALIBs WWW-site will direct users to relevant information provided on local servers with more efficiancy than global search engines can do at present.

Footnotes