The MELA Digital Scholarship Interest Group (MELA DSIG) is focused on supporting our community of colleagues working in MENA librarianship as we engage with digital humanities / digital scholarship.
Led by a steering committee, our aim is to foster a community of practice around partnering on and initiating digital scholarship projects and to together explore and pursue a better understanding of the role that we as specialists working in MENA librarianship play in digital scholarship work.
Membership
MELA DSIG discussion list. Participation is open to all interested
Steering Committee:
- Gayle Fischer, Past Chair (2022-2024)
- Dale J Correa, Past Chair (2022-2024)
- Michael Toler (2022-2024)
- Nora Avetyan (2022-2024)
- Wafa Isfahani (2022-2024)
Steering Committee Charge
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Circulates opportunities for training & community building, news of projects & initiatives, features of tools & approaches, and other topics of interest on the MELA community listservs
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Maintains a resources page accessed via the MELA website
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Organizes at least one roundtable, workshop or presentation per year in conjunction with the annual MELA meeting
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May organize or sponsor additional programs occasionally at other times of year in conjunction with MELCom, MESA, or other conference, prioritizing involvement of colleagues beyond North America and especially those colleagues based in MENA
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Supports the work of Interest Group initiatives such as the MELA Digital Preservation Task Force
Current Initiatives
Digital Scholarship Interest Group (DSIG) Roundtable: Who is it for?
- Presented at the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) annual conference 2021.
MELA Digital Preservation Task Force
- This task force has been formed to promote and increase Middle East subject librarian involvement in the preservation, access, and discoverability of Middle East related digital content. We also aim to increase awareness of such activities already taking place.
MELA Survey on Digital Scholarship : Results
- These slides present the results of the MELA Survey on Digital Scholarship conducted during the summer of 2018. For a discussion of the results see MELA Notes 91 (2018).
404: Archiving the web (Ryder Kouba)
- Ryder Kouba presents a DSIG-sponsored workshop on web archiving at the 2019 MELA meeting.
MELA 2020 Virtual roundtable on Arabic script OCR / HTR
- Recording of a roundtable discussion showcasing the experiences of a sampling of colleagues working with various Arabic script OCR / HTR tools, workflows, materials, and languages.
Wikipedia & Wikidata for Middle East Librarians (AJ Robinson)
- Recording of a workshop offered by AJ Robinson during the MELA 2020 virtual meeting, with contributions on wikidata from Iman Dagher.