Dar Almandumah held its 2nd Annual Forum in Dubai from November 7 to 9. The meeting was attended by nearly sixty deans, library directors, and representatives of Gulf and Arab library unions and consortia.
During the forum, Dar Almandumah presented the new products and developments in its databases that the company had worked on during 2013, including:
• The Theses Database, which is set to become the primary reference for all Arab universities in the field of academic theses.
• The Humanities Database, which was completed and scheduled for launch during 2014.
• The new search platform, an integrated system comprising seven interconnected systems that together provide an advanced platform for search and retrieval.
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• Re-entering texts and enabling full-text search, with the texts of all research published in 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010 having already been re-entered, while work was ongoing to complete the remaining years back to 2005. All these full texts would be searchable through the new platform to be launched in 2014.
• A journal browsing system similar to ScienceDirect, offering users another way to access information beyond search and retrieval by browsing and reviewing journal issues.
• The announcement of a joint cooperation initiative between Dar Almandumah, Kuwait University, and Thomson Reuters to build and develop an Arabic citation database similar to Web of Science, previously known as ISI.
• The quantitative growth of database content, which had expanded significantly to reach half a million research papers and studies available across the company’s five databases. The number of scholarly journals included had exceeded 1,200 periodicals, in addition to nearly 1,750 conferences and seminars.
• Training programs, which reached nearly 30 courses delivered during 2013 and were expected to reach 45 courses by the end of the year. Around 19 universities benefited from these programs, with total attendance reaching nearly 1,800 participants.
The forum received very positive feedback from all subscribing universities, and the attendance and discussions were rich with contributions from deans and representatives of the participating universities and library consortia.
