News

The First Lady inaugurates WSIS pre-conference

Alexandria, 9 November 2005— Her Excellency Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, First Lady of Egypt and Chair of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Board of Trustees, will inaugurate the World Summit on the Information Society ‘WSIS’ Pre-conference “Libraries – The Information Society in Action”, taking place at the BA, on 10-11 November 2005. The WSIS pre-conference comes within the framework of the WSIS Phase II due to take place in Tunisia, 15-19 November 2005. It will present the best library practices around the world in the areas of health, education and training, media literacy, and preservation of cultural heritage.

During the WSIS, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) will participate in three main events:

1. The VVIP pavilion, where HE President Mubarak will inaugurate the Egyptian pavilion and announce the launch of the Arab Info Mall, envisaged as a tool of the Arab Reform Forum to further the cause of democracy, freedom and peace through support of civil society efforts towards reform and dialogue in the region.



2. The Egyptian pavilion at the ICT4All Exhibition, which is considered the greatest parallel event during the WSIS. The Exhibition is a multi-stakeholder event with representatives from the UN, Private Sector, Governments, Civil Societies, International Organizations and NGOs. The exhibition and partnership area is divided into five themes and the Egyptian pavilion falls within the Inclusive Access theme zone. The Egyptian pavilion is further divided into five themes and the International School of Information Sciences (ISIS) and CultNat, affiliates of the BA, will represent Egypt in the E-Content theme with the following projects:
   
   
   • Gamal Abdel Nasser Collection
   • Million Book
   • DAR: Digital Assets Repository
   • Description de l’Egypte
   • Virtual Browser of Manuscripts
   • UNL: Universal Networking Language
   • Arab Info Mall Database and Website
   • Eternal Egypt
   • Culturama
   
   For more information about these projects, please visit www.bibalex.org/isis and www.cultnat.org.



3. The BA will also participate in other parallel events taking place. It will organize a workshop on 18 November 2005 from 1:00 – 3:00 pm at Jerba Hall. The panel discussion will be chaired by Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Its main topic is the BA’s Role in Information Society and it will discuss the BA’s contributions in:
   
   
   • Promoting culture in the digital age
   • Bridging the digital divide
   • Providing Arabic e-content
   • Building the Digital Library