Agreements

Joining the Digital Library Federation (DLF)

The Digital Library Federation (DLF), founded in 1995, is a partnership organization of academic libraries and related organizations that are pioneering the use of electronic information technologies to extend their collections and services. Through its strategic partners, the DLF provides leadership for libraries by identifying standards and "best practices" for digital collections and network access; coordinating research and development in the libraries' use of technology; and incubating projects and services that libraries need but cannot develop individually. The DLF operates under the administration umbrella of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). 

With 35 partners and 5 allies, the DLF identifies, documents, endorses, and promotes adoption of standards and best practices that support the effective acquisition, interchange, persistence, and assessment of digital library collections and services. 

On the 20 th May, 2005, BA joined DLF as the first Strategic Partner from outside the USA and Europe, the first from the Middle East, and the second outside the USA (after the British Library). This will allow the BA to participate in the world-wide effort of developing and promoting strategies and standards for creating and maintaining sustainable and scalable digital collections. 

Partners & Participants:

The current 35 DLF partners include the British Library, California Digital Library, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Council on Libraries and Information Resources, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Harvard University, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, Library of Congress, National Archives & Records Administration, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York Public Library, New York University, North Carolina State University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, Rice University, Stanford University, University of California – Berkeley, University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, University of Washington, Yale University, Oxford University and Bibliotheca Alexandrina.

Agreement between BA and Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center (CMIC)

In May 2007, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) and Cairo Microsoft Innovation Center (CMIC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for potential collaboration in the fields of Digital Library Services and Grid Computing. The collaboration between the two parties is to envision and prototype a model for future public libraries serving research interests.

Agreement between the BA and the Library of Congress (LoC)

On 11 May 2006, the Library of Congress and the BA(Bibliotheca Alexandrina) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) according to which Bibliotheca Alexandrina agreed to play a leading role in the planning of a World Digital Library and to contribute some of its own collections to the project. The two libraries will also embark on completing a joint digital library project that will serve as one of the building blocks of the future digital library, and that will be used to develop and test standards, technologies, and procedures.

Agreement between the BA and the Development Gateway foundation

In March 2006, Bibliotheca Alexandrina signed an agreement with the World Bank and the Development Gateway Foundation to create the Arabic Gateway portal that aims to reduce the existing shortage of development information for the Arab World.

Agreement between the BA and the French Academy of Science

Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the French Academy of Sciences signed an agreement whereby BA contributed to La Main a la Pate French website project. The project aims at creating an equivalent website in Arabic - Ektashef Benafsak - with the same structure as the original. This will include translating the website content into Arabic as well as adapting the curriculum, methodology and material to users of the Arab World and promoting the methodology within the Egyptian science community. For more information about the project, click here.

Agreement between the BA and the Sadat family

In 2004, an agreement was finalized with President Anwar El Sadat’s family to digitize the collection related to the president’s reign. The project aims to raise the national awareness of this important period of the Egyptian history, and enhance our internal solidarity which is necessary to confront the globalization challenges. For more information about the digitization of Anwar El Sadat’s collection, click here.

Agreement between the BA and the Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha family

Bibliotheca Alexandrina signed an agreement with the Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha family in 2004 to digitize the family collection. Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha is one of the most famous Egyptian Prime Ministers; his documents contain very rich and rare historical materials that have never been published before. For more information about the digitization of the Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha collection, click here.

Agreement between the BA and the Botros Ghaly family

In the framework of preserving the modern history of Egypt, BA has finalized an agreement with the Botros Ghaly family in 2004 to digitize the family collection. The Botros family has held important positions in Egypt for the past 200 years, and kept a collection of reports, letters, telegrams, articles, Egyptian and foreign newspaper clips, invitations, photos, etc. related to the family’s political role. For more information about the digitization of El Botroseyya collection, click here.

Agreement between the BA and Dar El Sherouk

In April 2004, Bibliotheca Alexandrina signed an agreement with Dar El Sherouk – an Egyptian publishing house – to digitize all its issued publications and provide them through Print-on-Demand outlets at BA.

Agreement between the BA and the Nasser Foundation

In March 2004, an agreement was established between the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) and the Nasser Foundation to create the Nasser web portal, http://nasser.bibalex.org. The Nasser Foundation is the owner of almost all the resources related to Nasser epoch and all of them were given to the BA to digitize and publish.

Agreement with Hole in the Wall Education Limited (HIWEL)

Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Hole in the Wall Education Limited (HIWEL) signed an agreement in August 2003 according to which HIWEL offers BA consultancy, technical advisory, designs, license, estimated costs and other help required to implement the Hole in the Wall project in Alexandria.

Joining hands with Yale University to improve access to Middle Eastern heritage

Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Yale University Library, USA, have developed several partnerships since October 2002. In October 2002, the two libraries joined hands in creating the Online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials for the Middle East (OACIS) project. The project, generously funded by TICFIA (US Department of Education), aims to improve access to Middle Eastern serials in libraries in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East and to make scholarly literature from, and about, the Middle East widely and easily available to scholars around the world. The OACIS project may be accessed through http://oacis.bibalex.org.

In 2004, BA was invited by Yale University to be a partner in the Iraqi ReCollection project. The project aims to digitize a selected group of the most important scholarly humanistic Iraqi journals held by Yale and the University of Pennsylvania and permit the retrieval and display of this group via the Internet. Moreover, on 7 August 2005, the partnership developed further to create the OACIS’s sequel, the Arabic and Middle Eastern Electronic Library (AMEEL) project. The AMEEL project is the logical next phase following OACIS.

Agreement between the BA Dar Al-Hilal to digitize Al-Hilal Journal

In 2002, Bibliotheca Alexandrina signed an agreement with Dar Al Hilal – an Egyptian publishing house – to digitize Al Hilal journal issues. The aim of this significant project is to publish a digital copy of the issues of Al-Hilal magazine since its first publication in 1892– more than 100 years ago. Al-Hilal Digital Archive is part of the Digital Library of the Modern History of Egypt, which is a cornerstone of Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s (BA) integrated digital library.

Partnership between the BA and the Internet Archive

Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Internet Archive developed a partnership in April 2002, according to which the Internet Archive in San Francisco, USA, donated to the BA a copy of the archive of the World Wide Web and 2000 hours of television programs on a set of 200 computers. Moreover, on 26 June 2003, the Internet Archive donated some equipments to the My Book: Digital and Printed project. For more information about the Internet Archive, click here, and http://archive.bibalex.org.

Agreement between the BA and the UNDL Foundation

In January 2001, Bibliotheca Alexandrina signed an agreement with the Universal Network Digital Language (UNDL) Foundation. According to this agreement, BA is to implement the Universal Networking Language Program for the development and promotion of multilingual communication, information processing and access to knowledge across language barriers with the use of the new information and communication technologies. The agreement was renewed in July 2004.

Agreement between the BA and Carnegie Mellon University

Under the umbrella of the Million Book project, Bibliotheca Alexandrina signed an agreement with the Carnegie Mellon University. According to this agreement, Carnegie Mellon University provided equipment for the Digital Laboratory. The equipment included five Minolta PS 7000 Book Scanners.