About the project

Iraqi Press Encyclopedia

A digital project turning a printed archival work into a browsable, citable research platform, while fully preserving the author's text and its position in the source.

Browse entries

The Encyclopedia

“The Iraqi Press Encyclopedia over a Century and a Half” is an archival work authored by researcher and writer Ali Nouri Al-Shammari, documenting Iraqi press publications — newspapers, magazines and bulletins — inside and outside Iraq, alongside biographies of Iraqi press figures.

4329

published entries

146

press biographies

4884

people & entities

215

publishing cities

Figures reflect the entries extracted and currently available in this edition, not the full size of the printed encyclopedia.

Encyclopedia parts

Part One — Newspapers

Iraqi newspapers

Part Two — Magazines, bulletins & press figures

Magazines, bulletins & press figures

Part Two — Magazines

Magazines

Part Two — Press figures

Press figure biographies

Part Three — The Illustrated Encyclopedia

Illustrated archive 1869–2019

Documentation methodology

From the source file to the published entry.

1
Original sources
Each part's files (PDF, HTML, JSON, Markdown) are kept as-is without modification, and remain the final reference.
2
Extraction
A Python processing pipeline reads the block and page structure and extracts entries, fields and roles with a confidence score for each entry.
3
Review
Output is shown in a review panel for correction, merging and splitting, and every edit is logged in the review record.
4
Publishing & search
Approved entries are published on the public site and indexed for fast search, while keeping the source link visible.

Quality rules

The original text is never edited or rewritten.
No guessing: fields not mentioned in the source are left blank.
Every structured fact is linked to its position in the source (part, page, block).
Every entry passes human review before approval.
Any automated answer must cite the source it was built on.

Technical stack

Processing

Python · BeautifulSoup · extraction rules

Backend

Laravel API · Filament · MySQL

Frontend

Next.js · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS

Meilisearch (with local fallback search)

Author

Ali Nouri Al-Shammari

An Iraqi researcher and writer focused on the history of the Iraqi press. Intellectual rights to the original material are reserved to the author; this platform is a viewing and search tool, not a substitute for the printed work.

Found an error in an entry?

Every entry shows its position in the source, making it easy to compare the published text with the printed original and report any discrepancy.

Start from the index