An in-depth discussion on the historical items, which are freely available on Qatar Digital Library, will take place at Qatar National Library on 8 January 2019.
Entitled, ‘A Digital Journey to the Past: Inside the Qatar Digital Library,’ the talk will be jointly conducted by Dr. James Onley, Director of Historical Research and Partnerships at Qatar National Library, and Richard Davies, Head of the British Library - Qatar Foundation Partnership at the British Library. Academics, researchers, students and the wider community will hear about the future of the Digital Library and the third phase of the partnership, which will see the digitization of a further 900,000 pages of historical records.
“As the world’s largest open access digital repository for Middle Eastern history, the Qatar Digital Library records are routinely cited in historical studies of the Gulf region and have become an important source of information for scholars around the world. Researchers have already started to use the Digital Library to produce exciting new research about Qatar and the wider region, examples of which will be shared during the lecture,” said Dr. Onley.
“Working in partnership with Qatar Foundation and Qatar National Library for the last seven years, the British Library has been thrilled with the success of Qatar Digital Library. We are delighted to be able to make the British Library’s unique collections relating to Gulf history and Arabic science freely available for anyone in the world to use for both research and enjoyment. This lecture will give a behind-the-scenes insight into the work of our partnership and the impact that the Qatar Digital Library has had.” said Richard Davies.
The Digital Library is the outcome of a partnership between Qatar Foundation, Qatar National Library and the British Library, which currently offers access to over 1.5 million pages of history relating to the Gulf and the wider region. It has been visited by more than 1.2 million users and has generated more than 10 million page views.
