Qatar National Library Highlights Its Leading Role in Preserving Arab, Regional Heritage

Doha, February 28 (QNA) - Qatar National Library (QNL) has succeeded in preserving cultural heritage in the Arab region and the Middle East, since its selection in 2015 by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), to be the regional center for the preservation of heritage materials in the Arab world and the Middle East, before it was officially opened in March 2018. The renewal of the agreement between AFLA and QNL recently, for a new period of three years, came in support of its six-year efforts in preserving the Arab heritage in the region, after the great success achieved by the library over the past six years, during which it launched many projects and initiatives. Qatar News Agency (QNA) visited the QNL to learn about its role in preserving Arab and regional heritage and the services it provides in this regard. In a statement to QNA on Monday, Book Conservation Specialist at QNL Maxim Nasra said that the library, to perform its role in preserving the heritage, whether the heritage of the library or the Arab or regional libraries, owns a group of laboratories that work to achieve these tasks. There is a laboratory for conservation and preservation and a scientific laboratory, in addition to two other laboratories in which very modern technology is used to remove acidity from papers and collectibles in large quantities, as acidity is one of the most important problems affecting the preservation of heritage collectibles. The Book Conservation Specialist at QNL added that the role of these laboratories is mainly to maintain the collectibles of the National Library, as the library has thousands of manuscripts, newspapers, photographs, and everything related to documentary heritage. Preserving this heritage is done by addressing it with regard to minor problems such as humidity and heat, in addition to preventive conservation, which works to preserve this heritage in appropriate environmental conditions. He added that the conservation center team's primary mission is preventive conservation, therefore, specialists interested in preserving this heritage must be studying materials science and documentation techniques, especially since manuscripts are exposed to many problems, including environmental conditions such as heat and humidity that affect the paper or the materials on the paper and cause stains, along with insects, fungi and mold, as well as gases in the air. Books are an ideal environment for insects and fungi, and thus affect the presence of holes in manuscripts or erosion at the edges, as well as oxidation and paper fossilization, in addition to bad preservation, handling, and storage by individuals, all of this affects manuscripts, especially if it has been in the possession of people for hundreds of years. Therefore, the preservation of manuscripts starts from addressing their problems and then correctly preserving them. On whether the center preserves manuscripts and collectibles for other institutions in Qatar other than the library, Maxim Nasra clarified that the team is currently preserving the library's manuscripts, and cooperation is being carried out with various institutions on certain projects so that the library team maintains a project for a specific institution, which is what was done with Qatar University. In addition, the library provides a service through its website, in the name of (Ask the Conservation Specialist), in which the library respond technically to the problems faced by the heritage of families, manuscripts, and ancient documents, and provide them with technical information through which heritage can be preserved. With regard to the library's role as a regional center for IFLA, Book Conservation Specialist said in his statement to QNA that the library plays its leading role in coordinating conservation efforts and initiatives among the Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa, indicating that the selection of the library for this role came after competition with a number of institutions in different countries since 2015 and then it was renewed in 2018, and the agreement will be renewed again this year until 2024 and this is based on the projects submitted by QNL and the new plan. He pointed out that the QNL achieved this through capacity building and technical support via the training courses that it provides permanently at its headquarters to learn about the most important new technologies in maintenance and preservation, besides providing grants to many libraries, as well as transferring courses to different countries; so, a course was presented in Morocco for the Arab Maghreb countries, another in Lebanon for the countries of the Levant, and a third in the Sultanate of Oman for the Arab Gulf countries, and so on. In addition to the implementation of training courses using video conference, noting that the library is cooperating with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to inventory most of the libraries that have a documentary heritage, whether they are public libraries, government libraries or the private sector. The library provided its support to public and private libraries in Yemen, Algeria, and various Arab countries. Maxim Nasra stated that a questionnaire was conducted to identify the problems and challenges that the documentary heritage suffers from in an attempt to overcome these challenges, which resulted in a report issued in both Arabic and English, which revealed that the most important challenges are the problem of storage, the lack of maintenance and preservation materials and the lack of training and awareness, especially when families own ancient manuscripts, and this is a lot in the Arab world. He noted that the results of the report were dealt with in the form of training courses; The first course was on cataloging and classification in Jordan, in partnership with UNESCO, and several different Arab countries participated in it, adding that these courses offered by the library to various Arab countries are continuing during this stage as well. The library is also working in the coming years to provide documents in Arabic on ways to preserve manuscripts and documents due to the scarcity of Arabic references specialized in this field, in addition to educational videos about document maintenance, and dealing with crises and document disasters. Regarding the material and technical support provided by QNL in the Arab and regional domains, Book Conservation Specialist at QNL Maxim Nasra stated that there are conditions for obtaining library support after training; for example, financial support was provided to the Beirut Library after the Beirut port explosion, in cooperation with a number of international organizations, noting that the library is currently working on selecting five private libraries in the Arab region and the Middle East for providing support to them, provided that libraries have important heritage and manuscripts that need preservation. Regarding the most important projects of QNL in the field of heritage preservation and protection, Nasra said that two projects were launched recently, one of which was a protection project to combat the illicit trafficking of documentary heritage in the Arab region, which was launched last year and continues. he added the focus of the project was on the heritage due to the easiness of illicit trafficking in the documentary heritage and smuggling it. He noted that the project was carried out in coordination with the library and many partners around the world, pointing out that the library signed a memorandum of understanding in this regard with the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (ALECSO) and with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), where training is conducted for officers and staff of customs and all concerned to combat illegal trade in documents. He added that one of the new and important projects of the QNL was the project to protect the audiovisual heritage, because the challenge in this regard was not related to heritage only, but also to the tools through which heritage can be preserved and hidden with the continuous technological development, despite the Arab region's richness in this heritage, such as the archives of Arab radio stations and old films and others. Nasra concluded his statement by saying that one of the important projects of QNL was the observatory to monitor endangered heritage, indicating that the library would continue its responsibility in monitoring disasters and dangers that threaten the region's documentary heritage through cooperation with institutions and relevant authorities to take the necessary and prompt measures and provide support. He explained that for example, when a flood occurred in Sudan, contact was made with the Sudanese side to find out which libraries were damaged, as well as in Yemen and other countries. He added that the library is a regional center that should provide information to partners in addition to its role in preserving and maintaining heritage when heritage is exposed to any danger, stressing that QNL continues its role in preserving heritage by providing awareness and training necessary to preserve documentary heritage, in continuation of the library's role as a regional center accredited by IFLA for the preservation and protection of heritage materials in the World. (QNA)