The Qatar National Library.
By Irfan Bukhari
DOHA: There was pin-drop silence in the hall and it was not due to discipline rather it was due to the fact that people were too busy to spend time reading books. It remains open on weekdays in two shifts, morning and evening, but greets one or two visitors in long twelve hours. Thanks to living in the digital age, the online treasure of knowledge and information has changed people’s attitudes a lot.
It is the story of Qatar National Library located at Old Al Ghanim. Established in 1962, it is being run by the Ministry of Culture and Sports. “The times have changed … people gain knowledge from the Internet and have no time visiting libraries,” lamented an employee of the library.
Remember, this library is a separate body and has no link with the homonymous Qatar National Library being run by the Qatar Foundation.
The Peninsula found all the chairs empty but nicely cleaned. “Yes you will find the same position all the time. Only one two persons visit the library daily. Most of the people particularly students visit here when they need some reference as the QNL has an excellent collection of rare Islamic literature,” said the official.
The library provides the facility of photo-copying to all visitors and its membership is also open for Qataris and expatriates.
Despite its easy and open-to-all membership procedures, the QNL has only around 2,000 members. “We have also cancelled membership of numerous people who have not visited the library since 2007,” said the official of the library.
One simply needs filling an application-form duly certified from the institution they are studying or working.
The newspaper and magazine section of the library, situated at the ground floor of the building, also presented a deserted look. No visitor was there except few lower-cadre employees of the facility reading fresh papers and enjoying a good-chat. The empty chairs in libraries do not necessarily mean that reading habit has died rather it has changed its form. People pick up stories from their Face book page feed and read the online versions of newspapers and magazines. The e-books are also there on the web to satisfy readers’ hunger for knowledge. But fondness for books and hard-copies is vanishing very fast under thick clouds of digitalization of knowledge.
The Arabic section of the library has thousands of books and has the honour of maintaining record of rare Islamic books on tafseer, hadith and history. Overall, the library has around 500,000 books. “All rare books and the books from multiple-volume-sets are not issued to anyone. It is our precious asset which we cannot bear losing. One can get particular pages photocopied,” the official said.
The library’s English section also has a good collection of books on medicine, fiction, history, earth sciences, biography, international relations etc. When asked whether expatriates and other people knowing English language used to visit the English section of the library, the official said: “They appear few and far between.”
In this age of Internet and presence of dozens of social media tools, the walls of the library are decorated with quotable quotes on books like “The library is a garden of books”, “The library is far all, provides knowledge in a nice shape” etc. But no one is there to even read these golden phrases.
Ahmed Bik, an Egyptian expat, was the one and only reader present in the main hall buried in a book Tareekh e Sina (History of Sinai). He was looking for a reference to win an ongoing argument with a friend. “Yes I have found the point at last,” he exclaimed. Bik also got a video clip recorded with the book proving his point in Arabic in victorious tune to his would-be audience. “I will share it not only on Face book but will also publish it on the You Tube,” he said.
