Funding organisation: DFG Funding level: Personnel and physical resources Running time: 2012-2013   Project description: The DFG Special Subject Collection 6.23 Middle East incl. North Africa (SSG VO) at the University and State Library of Saxony-Anhalt Halle (ULB Saxony-Anhalt) coordinates MENALIB, aka the Virtual Library of the Middle East, which was created between 2000 and 2005 thanks to support by the DFG. Within the framework of the MENALIB portal, initially the deeper indexation of printed and electronic scholarly publications as well as the link between digital bibliographic records and document delivery functions were advanced. Between 2009 and 2011, in a first project funded by the DFG (“Digitisation of SSG 6.23 Vorderer Orient”) free and unlimited access to electronic full-text materials was finally provided via the specialised document repository MENAdoc for 1,750 volumes of particularly important or frequently used SSG literature, irrespective of publication location and time. In a following project based on the latter, such free and unlimited access is now to be realised for an additional 1,300 volumes from the SSG’s holdings between 2011 and 2012.   For the digitisation process, both copyright-protected titles of scholarly series as well as copyright-free material relevant to the SSG were selected, with the material stemming predominantly from the holdings of the library of the German Orientalist Society (DMG).   The project can be seen as a further step on the way to an extensive digital repository of electronic full texts related to Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, whilst also taking into account an, in terms of subject quality and frequency of use, outstanding section of the holdings of the ULB Halle.   In the long-term, the ULB Halle aims for the expansion of the digital library of the SSG VO by advancing the full-text repository MENAdoc, whose starting point lies in the project presented here. In regard to this, the project aims a) at the continuous digitisation of copyright-protected literature (in accordance with publisher agreements) which prove to be of particular importance for the corresponding subjects , b) at the digitisation of the entirety of SSG VO-relevant old holdings being copyright-free of the ULB Halle (amounting to approx. 12,000 volumes) c) at the integration of SSG VO-relevant holdings of other libraries in additional digitisation projects and d) at the continued collecting, indexing and mirroring of freely accessible full-text documents on MENAdoc as well as the connection of MENAdoc with other subject-relevant full-text repositories of national and international partners.   Supplementary information and publications: The MENAdoc homepage provides further information on the current progress of the project: menadoc.bibliothek.uni-halle.de