Digital Libraries: Regional group of World Digital Library meets in Qatar

On December 12-13 2010 the World Digital Library (WDL) Office at Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development hosted the first meeting of the WDL Arab Peninsula Regional Group.

During the two-day meeting, WDL members and prospective members from national libraries and other major libraries in the Arab world discussed the role of WDL in the region, identified important collections about the region that could best represent its cultural and historical heritage and explored digital conversion and technical assistance for libraries in developing Arab countries.

The meeting brought together programme leaders from the Library of Congress, headed by Dr John Van Oudenaren, the Director of the World Digital Library and distinguished colleagues from the British Library and Yale University Library, which also have extensive Arabic collections.

“Through the World Digital Library, people from all over the world can discover the world’s cultural treasures on one database,” said Dr Abdulla bin Ali al-Thani, Vice-President of Education at QF and also a member of the Executive Council for WDL

The QF online library is a centralised digital reservoir of cultural treasures contributed by libraries around the world, from books and manuscripts to maps and photographs, accompanied by rare sound and film clippings.