The Visual Resources of the Middle East (VRME) project aims to consolidate archival material on the Middle East from different libraries and galleries at Yale onto one platform. The project was initiated in 2018 by Kishwar Rizvi, Professor in the History of Art, with a Title VI Grant from the US Department of Education. Design development and metadata collection for the project was done by Alex Seggerman (PhD, 2014 and CMES post-doctoral fellow, 2018) and Dina Taha (MED, 2019), who amassed over 900 items from across collections for the initial launch in 2020. Lindsay King, Associate Director for Access and Research Services at the Haas Arts Library, was the liaison with Artstor who helped guide the project from its conception, and Maria Zapata, Technical Assistant at Haas, provided cataloging and uploading support. Marilyn Wilkes, Director of Communications at the MacMillan Center, helped conceptualize the project design and its publicity.
We are grateful to colleagues across Yale University, at the libraries and museums, who have kindly provided access and support. The project was generously funded by the Higher Education Opportunity Act, Title VI Program at the MacMillan Center’s Council on Middle East Studies, and the History of Art Department at Yale University.
