In line with the initiatives of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO) in supporting the efforts to reduce the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on education, science, and culture, an agreement was concluded with Bibliotheca Alexandrina, one of the largest and oldest libraries worldwide, to provide access to its treasure troves of knowledge through “ICESCO Digital Home,” within the framework of the initiative of “Distance Culture,” via the link below:
https://www.icesco.org/%d8%aa%d8%ab%d9%82%d9%81-%d8%b9%d9%86-%d8%a8%d8%b9%d8%af/

The treasures of Bibliotheca Alexandrina, hosted by “ICESCO Digital Home,” include four key elements:
1- The Digital Assets Repository (DAR), which was developed by the International School of Information Science (ISIS) at Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It archives all types of media, including books, slides, movies, maps, and audiovisual materials. It also includes the most extensive Arabic book collection providing various viewing options, keyword search or expression, tagging, sharing books on other social networks, rating books, and interacting with other users through submitting comments.
2- Wellcome Arabic Manuscripts Online, which provides access, for the first time, to the largest collection of manuscript books and fragments on the history of medicine with high-quality digital image online along with associated rich metadata. It is part of the Asian Wellcome Library, which comprises 12 thousand manuscripts and 4 thousand printed books in 43 different languages.
3- Egyptian Press Archive, which archives 40 years of the Egyptian press production in various fields in Arabic, English, and French. It includes half a million journalistic articles, written by 17 thousand writers and journalistic correspondents on 30 different themes and published by 170 publishing houses, newspapers, periodicals, and magazines.
4- Digital Archive of the Egyptian Stamps, which includes 2300 postal stamps published by the Egyptian Post from 1866 to present times. It includes various kinds of stamps, such as regular mail, official mail, airmail, and commemorative stamps, which were published in special occasions and cover a large number of significant events in the history of Egypt and the world. Each stamp includes detailed information about its publishing date and occasion, and its full description.

This unique cooperation between ICESCO and Bibliotheca Alexandrina is the supreme effort of the two parties to sustain the cultural activity during Covid-19 pandemic. It provides the public with digital knowledge sources amid the closure of the cultural institutions and bodies to halt the spread of the virus and anticipate and support the future of digital culture.

It is worth mentioning that “ICESCO Digital Home” provides access throughout the lockdown period over 6 million e-books and online knowledge sources from Sharjah Library open to the public in more than ten different languages. “ICESCO Digital Home” also provides access to all the contents of the digital platform of the Mohammadia League of Scholars, in the Kingdom of Morocco, including Raed Platform for the dissemination of safe religious knowledge, Books of the deconstruction of extremist discourse, Museum of Science and Urbanism, Museum of Science History, and Portal of Mohammadia League of Scholars.