National Library of Kuwait
Other Voices
IBy Ahmad Al Sarraf
enjoyed reading minutes of the last meeting conducted by my colleague Siham Harb with Mr Kamel Abdul Jalil, Director-General of the National Library of Kuwait. I also enjoyed reading the minutes of the other meeting with the distinguished friend Mohammad Al-Sanousi and we expect from Siham more such worthy meetings.
Abdul Jalil said the Kuwaiti family is adhering to its original Arab customs and traditions and sometimes needs someone to remove the dust. I do not know if he meant remove the dust from the Kuwaiti family or from our Arab customs and traditions, and this is an elastic sentence that does not make sense, and I do not think many of those Kuwaiti customs and traditions remain. Societies are constantly evolving and nothing remains the same.
I was also pleased to know the library has expanded from 220,000 books to half a million since he taking office, but he has to remember that this is what money buys not the effort so filling the shelves is not a difficult process.
I was also pleased when he said that the work in the library has developed through the conversion of digital-toelectronic book registration and the preservation of all rare and valuable collections that represent the bright face of Kuwait electronically, make it available on the Internet soon, and other achievements.
I have personally visited the library more than once, either to attend an event or an activity or to actually see its rare contents, preserved and displayed in a beautiful civilized manner, and I advise the residents and the citizens to pay a visit. During each visit I hardly find visitors to the library, after the classical reading and the library visit became something of the past.
It is therefore necessary for the Director-General to make maximum use of the facilities at his disposal to create a weekly activity to listen to the lectures, and there are many who are willing to participate in them.
The library’s artistic, scientific and educational contents should be increased, thereby increasing the number of visitors to the library, expanding the circle of knowledge and making better use of library resources and capabilities.
It is regrettable that the vast wealth the library contains is not made use of. I say this with the knowledge of the existence of some events, but few, and not announced in an intensive manner.
The new vehicles introduced by the fire department.