oa The Qatar Unified Imaging Project (QUIP)

VCUQatar was recently granted QNRF funding to spearhead a highly collaborative and distributed project to advance knowledge of Qatar's history, traditions and culture. The Qatar Unified Imaging Project (QUIP) will identify and map the dispersed collections of Qatar's primary source materials in Qatar, India, Britain, and Denmark, then distribute selected results of that research from an open-access digital repository. The research team offers expertise in Gulf history, preservation, digitization, information access and education. Our expected outcome is the discovery and documentation of rich resource collections that will be made accessible for the benefit of the community and scholars without causing further deterioration of the original artifacts. QUIP will be an accessible resource to further the understanding of Qatar and the Arabian Gulf in relation to the rest of the world. Research will build on the work of the Qatar National Museum and the Ministry of Culture and expand access to disparate materials collected from or on Qatar, from the 18th to the 20th century. QUIP will produce a mapping of cultural orientation and a founding collection of digitized primary source materials. Using the European data structure and standardized metadata for classification of digital objects, ensures data portability and interoperability. QUIP will be sustained through collaborative partnerships with Qatar's cultural institutions, integration of the larger community of stakeholders and Qatar's commitment to UNESCO's Charter on the Preservation of the Digital Heritage.