HH Sheikha Moza signs MoU with US Library of Congress

Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development on Monday signed with Dr. James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress a memorandum of understanding between Qatar Foundation and the Library of Congress, in the presence of H.E. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Her Highness expressed on this occasion her appreciation to everyone involved in the World Digital Library (WDL) project and hoped that this memorandum can contribute to the enhancement of the bilateral collaboration and to building bridges of cultural communication and partnership aiming at introducing the Arabic and Islamic civilization to the whole world.

On the other hand, Dr. Billington thanked Her Highness and Qatar Foundation for supporting the World Digital Library, adding that such support has been vital in turning the vision of such a library into reality.

Speaker Pelosi, praising Her Highness vision and continuous efforts for developing and spreading education in Qatar and the world, welcomed Her Highness and thanked for her presence.

The memorandum of understanding aims at making Qatar Foundation a founding partner of the World Digital Library, a project launched by the Library of Congress and UNESCO to place on the Internet important cultural and historical, Arabic and Islamic documents and to make them accessible, free of charge and in multilingual format, to users worldwide.

The memorandum of understanding aims as well to expand cooperation in the areas of adding Arabic-language books, manuscripts, and other works to the WDL, including works of Arab science and technology in the WDL and promoting the WDL as a vehicle for increasing understanding of the achievements of Arab science in both the Arabic-speaking and non-Arabic speaking worlds. It also seeks to expand cooperation by increasing the number of institutions from the Arab world that are partners in the project; and increasing the use of the WDL by students and educators in the Arab world.

Seventy-five partner institutions from 50 countries are participating in the project. Qatar Foundation contributes to the WDL by providing through its Central Library cultural content, personnel, and financial support.

Her Highness and the accompanying delegation visited as well the main reading, research and studies room and examined maps, books and documents pertaining to the United States past phase. Her Highness visited as well the ancient civilizations section and examined rare Islamic manuscripts from the collections of the Library of Congress that are included in the WDL, including rare copies of the Holy Quran, books of Sunnah, biosciences, astrology, literature, history and other rare publications. Her Highness also stopped by a number of documents dating back to the previous century and relating to the State of Qatar.

Her Highness was also given a tour of the personal library of Thomas Jefferson, considered to be the first pillar for the Library of Congress, and received an explanation about how the Library displays actual historical documents in addition to its main collections and researches.

Qatar Foundation, a private non profit organization was established in 1995 by His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, and its mission is focused on Education, Science and Community Development. Qatar Foundation's flagship project is Education City hosting a cluster of World Class educational institutions and several academic and training programs in addition to Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) which signed several partnership agreements with more than 21 major companies specialized in the field of scientific research and development.

Qatar Foundation chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser aims to raise the quality of life by implementing developmental initiatives such as The Doha Debates, Reach Out to Asia (ROTA) and Al Jazeera Children s Channel.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the largest and most important library in the world. It contains more than 130 million materials consisting of books, documents and manuscripts, 29 million of which are books in 460 languages. The Library also contains more than 58 million documents and is considered to be the biggest reference in the fields of law, maps and movies.

Sheikha Mozah left Washington after a visit to US that lasted for several days.​