Public libraries hold glass painting course

As part of its cultural activities, the Public Libraries Department in Dubai Municipality organized a glass painting course in the Social Development Centre recently in order to provide programs designed to fill the leisure time, which will enrich the potential of youth and push them towards achievement and innovation through the acquisition of new skills that would have vital impact in their future life. The course, which lasted three days, witnessed tremendous interaction by the 23 participants.

The participants said they benefited maximum from the course and praised the way it was conducted by the Dubai Public Libraries Department giving them a special atmosphere of an educational session. They also praised the method of lecture by the Public Libraries staff member, Asma Abdullah by facilitating easy access of information to participants. Gifts and certificates were also distributed to the participants at the end of the session.

Dubai Libraries participate Family Forum Village activities

As part of its participation in the Family Forum Village organized by the Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein Islamic Cultural Centres and Dubai Public Libraries continued various activities to meet the large turnout, which exceeded 240 participants during the period from 19 to 21 March.

A series of workshops were conducted that included a workshop called Al Arayis for the development of professional skills of participants as well as a workshop designed to train attendees on how to maintain the books. Other activities included free painting to mark the Mother's Day and cultural contests. The Dubai Public Libraries has not limited its activities in providing events for the members of the libraries but it organizes many social functions to disseminate its cultural knowledge mission.

Libraries train employees in Database Management

The Public Libraries Department recently held a series of training courses for a group of its employees in database management at the Umm Suqeim library. The training courses were conducted by three companies, Advanced Arab Systems, Techknolwedge and Proquest.
Mohammed Jassim Al Eraidi, Director of the Public Libraries Department said the Department is always keen to catch up with the development in technology as far as providing information services and also to enhance the competency of its employees by qualifying them whatever needed for achieving the targets.
He said 43 employees including librarians and library services administrators participated in the courses.
Eraidi said the library members can now get benefited from the database on Islamic studies from Oxford, which is considered to be one of the important source of documents related to religion, Islamic world and history. The database, which provides the best information that helps to understand Islamic history and culture, is meant for students, researchers and Islamic research centres. This database also includes contributions from major religious scholars in Islamic history, faith, ideology, politics and culture. The database is subjected to constant updating.
The libraries also provide reference database on business from Oxford, which is one of the most used database by students and teachers. It includes a set of more than 175 titles and is also updated regularly. Illustrated Oxford dictionaries are also added to it.
AbdulRahman Ibrahim, Head of Technical Operations Unit said this step comes as a culmination of the plan of Dubai Public Libraries Department aimed at placing the best database that is used most by its members. This database will add up to the already existing database, EBSCO that covers more than 8,400 e-magazines, 4,506 court magazines, and Ebrary that contains more than 42,000 e-books, in addition to the Arabic database, AskZad that contains more than 16,000 books and university papers in Arabic in addition to more than 400 periodicals.