ElGouna Library: An Embassy of the BA

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Alexandria— ElGouna Library, founded by the Sawiris family, is an embassy of the BA, set on the track of accomplishing the Bibliotheca’s mission of spreading knowledge and understanding beyond the restrains of a single city. ElGouna Library is the archetype of a new age in librarianship: the number of books on the shelves does not exceed 750 physical books, but the true wealth of this library lies in how it is technologically and digitally set up to face the challenges of our time.

While 750 books are the apparent stock of the library, the digital material available at ElGouna, which has been provided by BA, contains more than 50,000 other ones. These 50,000 books are stored on the Digital Assets Repository (DAR), a repository for all types of digital material. There is also access to the Nasser Digital Archive, Description de l’Egypte and L’Art Arabe. Another exquisite collection of texts that will be available at ElGouna is the Holy Books web portal, which carries antique volumes of the Bible and the Quran and is planned to embrace the Torah as well.

Another addition to ElGouna Library is Arab InfoMall, a website that provides access to Egyptian and Arab NGOs; the Development Gateway, an interactive portal for information and knowledge sharing on sustainable development and poverty reduction; and La Main à la Pâte (LAMAP), an educational site that aims to promote scientific thinking and investigation. For the adult researcher there is the Supercourse, a global repository of lectures targeting educators across the world.

An additional feature that will add a cultural dimension to ElGouna Library is the CULTURAMA and the Webcasting service, a service that broadcasts live feeds of the events taking place in the BA Conference Center will also be locally archived on servers at ElGouna Library so that visitors can access them at any time they choose, and at a high speed. ElGouna library will become a worthy representative of the BA by the Red Sea, setting an example for modern libraries to come on the importance of immortal digitized material and may it stand as a beacon to collaboration, tolerance and the importance of knowledge.

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