Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The Islamic Heritage Project

Here's a new resource about which I'm very excited: the Islamic Heritage Project is a digital collection of over 145,000 pages, including more than 260 manuscripts, 50+ maps, and nearly 300 printed texts from Harvard's library and museum collections. Materials date from the 13th to 20th centuries, and represent many regions (including Saudi Arabia, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and South, Southeast, and Central Asia), various languages (primarily Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish, as well as Urdu, Chagatai, Malay, Gujarati, Indic languages, and several Western languages), and numerous subjects [including religious texts and commentaries, Sufism, history, geography, law, and the sciences (astronomy, astrology, mathematics, medicine), poetry and literature, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy, calligraphy, dictionaries and grammar, biographies, and autobiographical works]. The database is searchable by keyword, title, name/creator, subject, and form/genre. It is also browsable by title, author/creator, country of origin, language, and by selected topics. Many of the materials in the collection are unique.

The project was produced by two coordinating partners: the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University and the Harvard University Library Open Collections Program. It was made possible by the generous support of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. This is a treasury of research material and a true jewel of an online collection, and I hope you will explore it at length.

At your service,
Cheryl

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

College Library Workshops for Grads in JTerm


The College Library is offering a series of workshops for grad students during the January term. They include a Harvard Map Collection Orientation, Basic Geographic Analysis, Working with Digital Historic Maps, an EndNote Workshop for the Sciences, Bibliography and History of the Book, and a RefWorks Basic session. Some sessions have limits on size, and they all require registration; you can get the direct info. to do so here.

Enjoy the break, and hope you take advantage of these special, free programs!
At your service,
Cheryl

Friday, December 11, 2009

Holiday and J-Term Library Hours


All of the College libraries will be closed from noon December 24, 2009 through January 3, 2010. From January 4th - 24th library hours will vary, so please check the library hour's page to see if the library you wish to visit will be open.

Happy holidays to everyone!
At your service,
Cheryl