Road and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced the launch of the world’s largest Arabic audio library in Dubai. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, unveiled the Dubai Audio Library. The facility, which targets seven million visually impaired people in the Arab world, has been […]
Road and Transport Authority (RTA) has announced the launch of the world’s largest Arabic audio library in Dubai. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, unveiled the Dubai Audio Library.
The facility, which targets seven million visually impaired people in the Arab world, has been set up in collaboration with the website Bookshare.org, as reported by the state news agency Wam.
Sheikh Hamdan marked the launch by uploading the first book to the Dubai Audio Library, Zayed Diwan. The Diwan is a collection of 87 poems written by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, paying tribute to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
Mattar Al Tayer, Director-General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of the RTA; and Abdullah Al Basti, Secretary-General of The Executive Council of Dubai, attended the inauguration of the library.
The library is part of RTAs efforts to support People of Determination by spreading a culture of reading among them, and integrating them into the community. The RTA is seeking to provide 300,000 books in Arabic.
More than 10,000 volunteers will convert Arabic books into digital format using OCR scanners and edit them before uploading them to the website, stated the Wam report. RTA said it is seeking to increase the number of Arabic audio books on the website to 300,000.
