Arabic manuscripts at World Digital Library: a few notes – Damascus Anecdotes

"Recently, I discovered, probably later than many others, that the World Digital Library (WDL) is hosting 57 Arabic-script manuscripts, many of whose originals are kept at the Egyptian National Library (EGL). This post is kind of a review of their online presentation.... What is dearly missing from these entries, however, is the manuscript reference number. Why is it not given in the description in addition to the images? As described above, you can work around this lack in some cases. But if you happen to be interested in the history of a work that is only available within a larger manuscript, the WDL digital images might not be helpful at all, simply because you cannot reference them...."