AhlulBayt News Agency: The Manuscript Imaging and Cataloguing Centre is one of the centres affiliated with the Intellectual and Cultural Affairs Department of the Al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine. It undertakes artistic and scientific tasks aimed at preserving, editing, and facilitating access to the manuscript heritage for researchers.
The centre includes multiple departments, some of which focus on photography and archiving, while others specialise in indexing and specialised libraries.
The assistant director of the centre, Mr. Haidar Jassim Al-Kanani, said: "One of the most important departments of the centre is the photography department, which is responsible for photographing manuscripts inside and outside Iraq. A large number of manuscripts have been photographed in the libraries of Karbala, Najaf, Baghdad, and other provinces, as well as in libraries in countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Lebanon, and London."
He added that the number of photographs completed by the photography department has now reached nearly one million copies, including about six thousand manuscript copies preserved in the library of the Al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine.
He explained that these digitised images are stored in the archive department within secure electronic media, including laser discs and special servers linked to the holy shrine, in preparation for their transfer to the indexing department, which organises the manuscript content through descriptive indexing of the holy shrine's library copies. So far, indexes for more than 2,400 copies have been issued, reaching the fifth part of these publications, which is currently available to researchers, with work continuing on the remaining parts. Additionally, the indexing of the manuscript images has exceeded 102,000 titles, which have been uploaded and made available through the "Digital Reference for Manuscript Heritage" website on the internet.
Al-Kanani added that the center's work also includes photographing, analysing, and archiving historical documents, in preparation for publishing them in special editions dedicated to the documents of the Al-Abbas's (p) Holy Shrine's treasury, which contributes to enriching the historical research movement. The centre also contains an important section, namely the specialised library, which includes thousands of paper and digital catalogues collected from Iraq and Arab and foreign countries. The number of paper catalogues has reached about 3,500 handwritten catalogues, in addition to nearly 3,000 digital catalogues, making it an important knowledge resource for researchers specialising in the field of manuscript heritage.
The Manuscript Imaging and Cataloguing Centre represents a practical model for preserving manuscript heritage and presenting it in a scientific and methodical manner that meets the aspirations of researchers and contributes to the maintenance of the Islamic intellectual memory.
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