Nasher
In a move to enhance cooperation and bridge cultural gaps between Arab countries and China, the first Arabic-Chinese digital library has been inaugurated in the Chinese capital Beijing.
The project was launched on the sidelines of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum to strengthen collaboration between libraries in the Arab League member states and public libraries in China.
The library, which will include a large collection of literary works in both Arabic and Chinese, will help to open greater lines of communication between the two ancient cultures.
To accelerate the process, the Arab League has assigned Saudi Arabia’s King Abdul Aziz Public Library, which has vast experience in operating digital libraries, to set up the new institution.
The King Abdul Aziz Public Library earlier released the Arabic Union Catalogue, which serves as a reliable source of high quality and standardised bibliographic materials in Arabic. The International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) to create a description in a standard, human-readable form, especially for use in a bibliography or a library catalogue.
The digital library will provide information services for researchers, scholars, policy makers and academics and will also serve the publishing community by highlighting books that are worthy of translation from and into Arabic and Chinese.