I learned today that all the Arabic manuscripts in the British Library were filmed and placed on micro-fiche. Apparently an Arab princeling paid for it, but great news. Less good news is that the set is available from IDC, offline, at the usual inflated prices (ca. $180,000). Remarkable really, considering that their investment is nil. They seem to have fiches of other collections too, such as SOAS.
I’ve never had much luck getting access to IDC microfiches. Does anyone know of a copy, somewhere that one could get copies of particular manuscripts in some usable form?