IFLA’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Division Committee (IFLA MENA RDC) organized a webinar “Launching of the Iraqi Portal of Knowledge”, with the Indexing and Information Systems Center of the Abbasid Shrine Library. Watch the Webinar Recording (Arabic only)

IFLA’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Division Committee organized a webinar related to knowledge portals in the region, which was attended by 93 participants. The purpose of the webinar was to launch the Iraqi Portal of Knowledge.

The main purposes of the portal as highlighted in the webinar:

  • To collect the various sources of information in one site and making it available to the Iraqi researcher electronically through this portal.
  • To unify work policies in the institutions participating in this portal, removing barriers between their employees, exchanging experiences, and saving in their budgets.
  • To provide access to electronic resources, including: local and foreign scientific sources, master’s and doctoral dissertations for researchers, research by faculty members in universities, and newspaper and magazine articles

Speakers & Programme

The following two presentations were presented by Dr. Imad Abdul Aziz Jaballah, Professional Programs and Awards Officer at Sharjah Public Libraries, who spoke about knowledge platforms and their role in enhancing the functions of knowledge institutions.

Subsequently, Mr. Hassanein Al Mousawi, Director of Indexing and Information Systems Center of the Abbasid Shrine Library, discussed the features of the Portal that was developed with the University of AlKafeel. He highlighted that the Iraqi Portal of Knowledge is a portal of fifteen repositories from libraries, archives and museums thus applying the LAM sector to demonstrate knowledge thought in Iraq.

In closing, the speakers and participants agreed that more national portals should be developed to disseminate the wealth of knowledge that the MENA region can offer, as well as to preserve this knowledge for future generations and researchers.

The session was moderated by Randa Al Chidiac, Vice-Chair of IFLA’s MENA RDC and Dr. Imad Bachir, Chair of IFLA’s MENA RDC.

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IFLA’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Division Committee, their news, events and plans: https://www.ifla.org/units/middle-east-and-north-africa-regional-division/