Hamdan launches world’s largest Arabic audio library
Initiative targets 7m visually challenged people across the Arab world
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Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, has launched the Dubai Audio Library, the world’s largest Arabic audio library, the Government of Dubai Media Office said.
In a statement yesterday, the media office said that the library, which targets seven million visually impaired people in the Arab world, is an initiative undertaken by the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in collaboration with the website Bookshare.org. The launch of the initiative coincides with International Volunteers Day.
Mattar Al Tayer, directorgeneral and chairman of the board of executive directors at RTA, and Abdullah Al Basti, secretary-general of the Dubai Executive Council, attended the inauguration.
Mohammad’s poetry
Zayed Diwan, a collection of 87 poems written by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, was the first book to be uploaded.
The collection features 87 poems that pay tribute to Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
The library supports the Day for Dubai initiative, which seeks to instill a culture of volunteering in the community.
More than 10,000 volunteers will convert Arabic books into digital format using OCR scanners and edit them before uploading them to the website.
Volunteers can contribute to the initiative in two ways. The first is scanning books and uploading them.
The second is proofreading books in the digital format before uploading them.
The Bookshare.org website has 600,000 books in English, but only 300 Arabic books. RTA is seeking to increase the number of Arabic audio books on the website to 300,000.