Center for Documentation and Research
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 by Rob
We took a trip to the Center for Documentation and Research yesterday which is sort of the UAE's version of a National Archives. Really interesting place with lots of history of the UAE. Apparently the center works with several other countries to find data related to the birth of UAE. For example they had several maps from Spain showing the countries use as a port during trips to India. There were many hand written notes from various Sheiks including one stating they had abolished slavery years ago, the note being written in the 60s. After a tour through the archives we were treated to a 3D movie explaining again how the UAE can to be. Lots of interesting details such as Qatar and Bahrain belonging to UAE at one time.
Our final stop was the Center's library , which is why we went in the first place, were we sat with the director and discussed where the Center was heading in the next few years. They would like to be a national archive for the UAE, however, the difficulty is that there is no system in place for sending documents to them. After documents have exceeded their life span they are sent to Musafa where they are thrown in a storage facility. Staff at the Center is minimal(we are talking four people here compared to thousand at LC) so they can not keep up with the backlog.
However, they have lofty goals, they would like to catalog half a million documents in the next few years, difficult but not impossible. Its nice to see the UAE taking some steps to preserve their documents is some shape or form. Hopefully they will iron out the problems and start moving in the right direction as an archive is necessary for an country.
One final note, the Center is moving towards a full BA and Masters program in library archiving. An excellent decision on their part as there are not nearly enough Emiraties working in the library.
Our final stop was the Center's library , which is why we went in the first place, were we sat with the director and discussed where the Center was heading in the next few years. They would like to be a national archive for the UAE, however, the difficulty is that there is no system in place for sending documents to them. After documents have exceeded their life span they are sent to Musafa where they are thrown in a storage facility. Staff at the Center is minimal(we are talking four people here compared to thousand at LC) so they can not keep up with the backlog.
However, they have lofty goals, they would like to catalog half a million documents in the next few years, difficult but not impossible. Its nice to see the UAE taking some steps to preserve their documents is some shape or form. Hopefully they will iron out the problems and start moving in the right direction as an archive is necessary for an country.
One final note, the Center is moving towards a full BA and Masters program in library archiving. An excellent decision on their part as there are not nearly enough Emiraties working in the library.
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I found this really interesting. You are witnessing and participating in a part of their history at an exciting time.