The head of the National Library and Archives of Iran announced the composition of the encyclopedia of culture by 20 groups and 100 elite researchers in three years.
“The plan is based on a guideline for basic research and the inherent responsibility of the national library and Islamic Studies Center,” IRNA quoted Seyed Reza Salehi-Amiri as saying.
He also spoke of a new publication of Nahj-ul-Balaghah (Way of Eloquence) and added this is a complete version of Imam Ali (A.S.)’s book which has been collected and composed by Seyed Sadegh Mousavi-Shirazi over a period of 28 years.
In all, seven guideline programs are on the agenda of the Documentation Organization, Amiri noted.
The elite and high profile academic personalities have been invited to work on liberal symposiums at the National Library. Three related programs such as meetings, critique sessions and other cultural/scientific events are to be held every week at a special place designed for the purpose at the library.
Digitalizing Books
Pointing to the plan underway for digitalizing all historical books and documents Amiri stated that 5% of the library’s contents have been transformed into digital documents and “we will collaborate with the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization and the Supreme Council of Cyber Space on this matter.”
The National Library is determined to work closely with national documentation organizations from other countries and libraries to exchange information and data, he asserted.
“Cultural Tourism is another proposal that is being designed in which for half a day foreign tourists are given the chance to explore the cultural capacities of the country through the documents of library,” Amiri concluded.
The library safeguards 2,700,000 volumes of books, 5 million magazines and journals and over 200 million pages of documents, 38,000 scarce manuscripts, 35,000 valuable books in lithography printing, 10,000 maps of various places in Iran from hundreds of years ago, and 120,000 dissertations. It has 80 branches in the country.
