Dr. Serageldin elected as Chairman of the Executive Council of the World Digital Library

Emphasizing on the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s role as a leading institution in the dissemination of knowledge and as a common ground for bringing together peoples and cultures of the world, Dr Ismail Serageldin, Director of the BA, has been elected to serve as Chairman of the Executive Council of the World Digital Library (WDL).

The WDL is considered a meeting point of the world cultures which aims to promote international and intercultural understanding and awareness between peoples of the world, providing a variety of digitized material with unrestricted access, free of charge to Internet users in 7 languages. Ever since the launch in April 2009, the initial 32 partners enrolled under WDL have rapidly grown since the launch to 89 partner institutions from 60 countries.

According to James Billington, Librarian of Congress and Project Manager of the WDL, Dr Serageldin has been chosen as Chairman of the Executive Council owing to his sound expertise and accomplishment in managing, in just few years, to establish the Bibliotheca Alexandrina as a major cultural and intellectual center for knowledge worldwide. In fact, the BA has been one of the earliest and most enthusiastic supporters of the WDL since its early beginnings in 2006. The BA is contributing its digital collection and technical expertise, as the ICT Sector at the BA has been chosen to co-chair the Technical Architecture Committee with the Library of Congress. The Committee is mainly responsible for establishing policies and guidelines needed to govern the technical aspects of the WDL regarding the tools and technology used.

Hence, as one of the institutional founders of the WDL, Dr Ismail Serageldin, Director of the BA was elected as member in the Executive Council, which also includes; Vice President for Education in Qatar Foundation, General Director of Berlin State Library, President of the National Library of Brazil, Deputy Director of the National Library of China, and two ex officio members; Director-General of UNESCO or her representative and the Library of Congress as the current Project Manager. All members have reached consensus to elect Dr Serageldin as Chairman of the Council.

The Executive Council endeavors to provide leadership and direction to the WDL in the context of its preset goals to expand multilingual and culturally diverse content on the Internet, to provide resources to educators, contribute to scholarly research and to build knowledge and capacity in the developing world in order to narrow the “digital divide”.

The election of Dr Serageldin, among 89 distinguished partners to lead such a role in the World Digital Library, is an emphasis that the BA has attained the trust and confidence of world class institutions to take such responsibility and is considered truly a “center of excellence”.