1. Qatar Unified Imaging
Project
Tammi Moe, MLIS
Virginia Commonwealth University Qatar

2. Preliminary Findings…
 No centralized index on Qatari primary source material
 There are significant narrative objects in Qatar worthy of
wider access.
 Primary source materials related to Qatar have limited
access
 Qatar’s primary source materials are displaced
 Digitized material on Qatar is scarce and descriptive
information is often lacking or inaccurate.
 No integration of primary source materials in the K-12
classroom

3. Defining primary source…
 Original Documents
 Oral history
 Autobiographies, diaries, e-mail, interviews, letters,
minutes, news film footage, official records,
photographs, raw research data, speeches.
 Creative Works
 Art, drama, films, music, novels, poetry.
 Relics or Artifacts
 Buildings, clothing, DNA, furniture, jewelry,
pottery.

4. “What Greek and Latin authors mention
concerning Arabia proves by its obscurity their
ignorance of almost everything respecting Arabs.
Prejudices relative to the inconveniences and
dangers of travelling Arabia have hitherto kept the
moderns in equal ignorance.”
– M. Niebuhr (1792)

14. Why?
 Economic decline
 Imperial occupation
 Control of information internally
 Arabian collections have limited access
 Internationally based collections outside
of Qatar have limited access

15. QUIP Primitives:
 Discovery = structured, collaborative,
serendipitous finding, keeping current
 Gathering = collecting, acquiring, organizing
 Creative = annotating, analyzing, describing,
reviewing and rating, writing
 Sharing = rights, data sharing, teaching,
publishing

16. Defining Archive
 Documentary by-product of human
activity
 Irreplaceable witness to past events
 Fragile and vulnerable

17. Defining Metadata
Information for digital objects making them:
 Searchable
 Descriptive
 Accessible
 Useful
 Related

18. Defining Open Source
 Like exchanging cooking recipes but
software code for cooking things up in the
digital environment.
Examples:
 Operating Systems – that runs Macintosh
 Wiki Software – that runs Wikipedia
 Drupal – digital repository software

19. Year One
 Site visits
 Data collection
 Data normalization
 Publishing Index

21. OAI DC XML Schema
<element ref="dc:title"/>
<element ref="dc:creator"/>
<element ref="dc:subject"/>
<element ref="dc:description"/>
<element ref="dc:publisher"/>
<element ref="dc:contributor"/>
<element ref="dc:date"/>
<element ref="dc:type"/>
<element ref="dc:format"/>
<element ref="dc:identifier"/>
<element ref="dc:source"/>
<element ref="dc:language"/>
<element ref="dc:relation"/>
<element ref="dc:coverage"/>
<element ref="dc:rights"/>

22. Archival Descriptions
 Name
 Contact details
 Hours of operation
 Access policy
 Types of holdings
 Administrative structure

23. QUIP points of entry:
 National Integration and  Popular Literature (oral and
Popular Culture written)
 Language and Ethnicity  Sports and Recreation
 History and Mythology  Painting, Design, and
 Tradition and Hierarchy Sculpture
 Theater, Outdoor Events, and  Architecture, Public and
Holidays Private
 Film and Photography  Religion and Pilgrimages
 Televisions and Video  Advertising and Propaganda
 Radio, Phonograph, Audio.  Gender and Race
 Lifestyles – Food Habits,  Cultural Geography and
Clothes, etc. Geopolitics
 Music  Oral Folklore Tales
 Rituals and Rites of Passage

24. Year Two
 Indian and Danish archives
 Selection for digitization
 Creation of digital substitutes
 Hosted Solution and collection building
 Translation of records
 Creation of thesauri
 Records for digital objects

25. Year Three
 Evaluation of Year-2 findings
 Secondary proposal
 Negotiating digitization of external
materials
 Transfer of QUIP database
 Training consortium partners
 Creation of K-12 lessons
 QUIP Launch

26. Outcomes
 A centralized index on Qatari primary source
materials is freely accessible
 Significant narrative objects about Qatar are
given wider access
 We build bridges among cultural institutions
 Displaced primary sources are brought together
digitally
 Stimulate awareness of Qatar’s rich history and
traditions

27. Thank you for listening
if you are interested in
participating…
tmoe@qatar.vcu.edu