This review article discusses the pros and cons of two bio-bibliographical tools for Western Saharan Arabic manuscripts. Research into this rich manuscript culture has been delayed; at the same time, the inadequate conservation of these manuscripts urgently demands more attention. Both bio-bibliographical tools are the outcome of profound pioneering studies and lay the foundations to foster new research agendas concerned with the Saharan manuscript culture, intellectual history, and social history. However, both compilers come from different academic disciplines. This fact is mirrored by the way data has been presented and compiled. Furthermore, the pluralistic and decentralized scholarly traditions of the Sahara produce their own obstacles and make such data collection a tremendously difficult task. Therefore, such tools—as important as they are—remain a work in progress and might most effectively be continued as an online database with an appointed editorial team that frequently updates the compilation with the new research results.

中文翻译：

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西撒哈拉阿拉伯手稿。试图构筑非洲文学传统

这篇评论文章讨论了两种针对西撒哈拉阿拉伯手稿的生物书目工具的利弊。对这种丰富的手稿文化的研究被推迟了。同时，这些手稿的保存不足也迫切需要引起更多关注。两种生物书目工具都是深刻的开创性研究的成果，并为培育与撒哈拉手稿文化，知识史和社会历史有关的新研究议程奠定了基础。但是，两个编译器都来自不同的学科。通过呈现和编译数据的方式可以反映出这一事实。此外，撒哈拉沙漠地区的多元化和分散的学术传统也产生了自己的障碍，使此类数据收集成为一项极为艰巨的任务。所以，