Thursday, October 03, 2013

How to connect to #Islam


#UNESCO supports #online access to library content on the Arab, Egyptian and Islamic civilisations. As it is, it contains some 155,000 volumes. Even better, a module that will be available on the Internet is being developed for any researcher who could enrich the catalogue by data of contextualization.

When you consider the information on both Wikipedia and Wikidata about these subjects are not of the same standard, not as informative. Consider for instance the article on the Mahdian Crusade, only the Europeans are mentioned as "notable participants" while elsewhere in the article Islamic notables are mentioned by name.

Similarly subjects and people relevant to the Arabic, Egyptian and Islamic civilisations are not as well presented in external databases like VIAF. It would be cool when libraries like the IDEO library in Cairo or the library of Alexandria were connected as well. If it cannot be in VIAF, how can we enable more of the relevant literature and information they hold in Wikidata?
Thanks,
      GerardM

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