Manuscripts

    Qalamos provides direct access to metadata and digitised copies of Oriental manuscript collections in Germany. It comprises approximately 135,000 manuscript datasets from Asian and African script traditions containing descriptions of 120,000 physical objects written in more than 160 languages and 80 scripts. The mission of Qalamos is to provide the metadata and digitised copies of Oriental holdings of all German memory institutions. Moreover, it aims to enhance international cooperation: Qalamos currently already presents collections from Indonesia, Yemen, Mauritania and Austria.

    Titles

    In Qalamos, you can either search for a title directly or browse authority records for over 1,000 mainly Arabic, Persian and Ottoman Turkish works, which are partly linked to title records of the Integrated Authority File ( GND ) and Library of Congress Authorities . Each work dataset provides an overview of the exemplars of a work contained in Qalamos. Moreover, it indicates the relation of this work to commentaries, translations and other expressions, if these are also contained in Qalamos.

    Persons

    An important feature of Qalamos is authority control. The portal contains authority records of authors, copyists, owners and other individuals connected to a manuscript. These are partly based on data from the Integrated Authority File ( GND ) and the Library of Congress Authorities , and supplemented on the basis of the relevant reference works. De person datasets enable unambiguous identification of a person and the works and manuscripts linked to this person in the portal.