DOHA: The 2016 Arab Peninsula Regional Group Meeting was hosted by Qatar National Library (QNL) and World Digital Library (WDL) under the theme, ‘Planning the Way Forward.’
The two-day event brought together library leaders from Qatar, the GCC and the wider region to explore strategic thinking and important concepts and planning for the Arab Peninsula Regional Group.
The workshop also highlighted the strategic goals for the future of the group and the importance of the Arab region’s contribution to the WDL.
Engineer Saadi Al Said, Director of Administration and Planning, QNL, said,“By hosting this annual workshop, we hope to further expand our support to the WDL initiative. WDL is an intellectual platform where members of the region can come together and discuss ways of managing content contribution and how to increase the availability of the digital resources on Arabic culture and Islamic history.”
Stressing the importance of the annual meeting, Dr John Van Oudenaren, Director, WDL, said: “The workshop has been a great opportunity for the World Digital Library and Qatar National Library to explore ways in which we can develop our partnership while focusing on effective ways to collectively build on WDL’s presence in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, especially now that QNL is expanding its digital outreach.”
QNL helps realise the WDL objectives to promote international and intercultural understanding and expand the variety of cultural content on the Internet by supporting the regional group’s meeting. This is done through the digitisation of thousands of pages from QNL’s prized Heritage Collection, making it accessible on the WDL website.
WDL is an initiative founded by the Library of Congress, with the support of Unesco) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. Led by the Library of Congress, libraries and cultural institutions from around the world contribute to WDL by sharing historical treasures to create a digital fountain of knowledge. Information contained within WDL is available in seven languages including Arabic.
The Peninsula
