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Fresh Meadows, NY: Data Conversion Laboratory, Inc. provider of conversion services and software to publishers, libraries, and government agencies, is converting to XML format the highly-acclaimed Encylopédie de l'Islam for Brill Publishers of Leiden, The Netherlands for on line publication. The work is already available in an English version, both in print as well as on line (brillonline.nl); DCL will provide links between the French and English electronic content, as well as links to the book's images.

Brill Publisher Joed Elich describes the Encyclopédie de l'Islam as "a unique and invaluable reference tool, an essential key to understanding the world of Islam, and the authoritative source not only on the religion, but also on the believers and the countries in which they live."

The scope of the work not only covers the Arabic world, but also Turkey, Central Asia, the Indian sub-continent, Indonesia and the former Ottoman Empire. Each article was written by a recognized specialist, and the encyclopedia is considered by academics to be the standard reference work about the Islamic world.

Reviewer Éric Rouleau, of Le Monde, wrote: The "Encyclopédie de l'Islam is a monument ... It is above all a reference work, unique for everything about Islamic theology, law, anthropology, literature, art and Islamic civilization in general."

This XML conversion project, consisting of approximately 13,000 pages, is complex due to the special character set - a combination of French with transliterated Arabic characters. DCLcreated special templates to facilitate the capture of these special characters into unicode values.

Mark Gross, President and CEO of DCL, said: "We are happy to extend our services once more to Brill. Last fall we converted to XML Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Brill's bio-bibliographic summary of all Arabic literature in German until 1902. Although it was a complicated project, DCL was able to meet Brill's high standards for quality on schedule and within budget; our goal on this project is to continue to please the customer and produce the results they have come to expect from DCL."

Unlimited Priorities Corporation© President Iris Hanney replied: "Brill is a really forward-thinking publisher. It is a true challenge to work with these languages and formats, but DCL has so advanced as a vendor that they are able to utilize technology to the max." Unlimited Priorities was the sales agent for DCL on the Brill project.