The State of Manuscript Digitisation Projects in Egypt

Walid Ghali, The Aga Khan University

Abstract

This chapter aims to shed light on the state of digitization projects that have

been undertaken or are in the planning stages in manuscript libraries in Egypt:

specifically, the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub), where many different

manuscripts projects have already taken place; the Central Library of Islamic

Manuscripts known as the “Awqaf Library”; the Bibliotheca Alexandria; and the

Library of al-Azhar, known as the al-Azhar online project. The challenges faced

by the respective projects teams will be discussed with a particular focus on the

administrative and technical aspects. In addition, this chapter discusses to what

extent the infrastructure and funding is available to implement digitization

projects.