Iraq, March 6th 2012 – With half a million books, the central library at the University of Basra, Iraq is establishing an electronic digital library. This project is considered one of the largest of its kind taking place in the Middle East.
The American Reconstruction team donated half a million dollars to the university project as well as two thousand books worth $100,000. That donation makes the university’s library one of the most important one in the world.
The central library secretary general said that the grant also includes establishing a TOEFL test center and an IC3 computer center.
A group of computer professors at Basra University worked on producing an electronic index system that will help students search for books in an efficient manner.
Secretary General: “The library used to rely on the old traditional form of paper categorizing. We started relying now on electronic categorizing.”
The University of Basra hopes to achieve world ranking not only through its library, but it’s colleges and research centers as well. They hope to be able to compete with the University of Alexandria, which is the only Arab university that is part of the top 100 universities in the Middle East, against seven universities from Israel.
Translation: Shounaz Mekky
Speaker: Secretary General
Voice: Jovan Djordjevic