Giant Leaps Forward
Giant Leaps Forward Dr. Mohammed Al Khalil | Director of Al Jazeera Centre for Studies
During the early summer of 2018, I met with Dr. Mohammed Al Misfer, an analyst and one of Qatar’s most renowned academics. The meeting was to negotiate the publishing of his most recent book, titled Intra-Gulf Relations: The Dilemma of Strategic Void and Fragmentation (1971-2018). The book examines the relations of the GCC states; the different paths of cooperation and conflict that have occurred and their evolution during the last three decades. It coincided with the first anniversary of what is known as the ‘blockade of Qatar,’ which started in 2017. The meeting ended with our assurances that we would do what was needed to make the book available at the earliest opportunity, primarily for his political sciences students. Since then, Al Jazeera Centre for Studies started to receive a torrent of queries about the publishing and distribution of the book, our upcoming workshops and our participation in the book fair. Once it was published, Al Misfer’s students would come to the Centre to receive a hardcopy of the book. But what about the thousands of other students and researchers outside Qatar, we wondered.
Suddenly, the outbreak of the coronavirus brought all of our lives to a standstill. We were faced with unusual routines, from quarantining to remote learning. What should we do now, we wondered. The answer came in a giant leap taken by Al Jazeera Centre for Studies: we decided to digitise the entire content of our past productions. As a result, 110 books and all the issues of the periodical magazine ‘Lubab’ were transformed into a digital form. The publications were made available online in a PDF format; a gift to all students and researchers alike. By the summer of 2020, all the technical arrangements were made to make all the Centre’s publications downloadable on social media platforms. In a later encounter, Al Misfer expressed his delight at this achievement. A second giant leap taken by Al Jazeera Centre for Studies was made with the launch of our own application in June 2021. This will make our content available to a wider range of readers. A third giant leap will be soon achieved when all our publications will be accessible through Kindle, the hand-held electronic device for reading books.
With the global pandemic, book fairs were no longer organised and many people were no longer able to visit public libraries. Our management was of the opinion that no more paper books should be released in 2020, simply because it was a waste of resources. To our surprise, the online turnout was extraordinary; as many researchers and students welcomed our move. And instead of 2,000 hardcopies for circulation, statistics showed that the number of views and downloads of a single publication was three to fivefold. Once more social media platforms are employed, the number will, no doubt, increase exponentially. To our amazement, the hardcopies continued to sell, which means the softcopies have had the necessary publicity. The giant leaps we took were inspired by Al Jazeera’s values and mission. Since its inception, Al Jazeera has spared no effort or resources in educating and enlightening the public.
As Abu at-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi’s words echo in my head – “The best companion, over time, is a book” - I can confidently say that Al Jazeera has truly taken the pursuit of knowledge to a higher level.
326
327
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter