This summer the Qatar National Library will travel with you, wherever you go. As a gesture for its vast and fast growing patrons, the Library’s extensive digital resources ensure that book lovers gain access to all the entertainment and stimulation they want, and at any time — free of cost.
The easily accessible knowledge reservoir will cover a wide range of subject areas and offer apps, ebooks, audiobooks and access to newspapers, magazines, music and video streaming and even academic papers.
There is a wide range of materials available to satisfy the information needs and diverse interests of all age groups. The Library also has a wide selection of streaming and downloadable content available to users. The award-winning Booki app offers a new experience when reading digital books such as comics, magazines and bedtime stories in English and Arabic.
Parents can encourage their kids to read more using RBDigital Comics, which gives access to more than 600 of Marvel and IDW digital graphics novels and comics. There is also BookFlix, online video storybooks for preschoolers through grade 3 as well as related games and activities.
Adults can rekindle their hobbies or catch up on their interests in business and finance, home and gardening, cooking and lifestyle by accessing popular digital magazines from their mobile using the RBdigital App, or from their desktop. For music lovers, the world of music available on the Naxos Music Library.
You can also learn even languages while on the go. Mango Languages is an efficient online learning resource that one can use. Audiobooks are growing in popularity and the Library has seen the number of downloads rise from 70 in 2017 to 2,674 in 2018.
Graduate students can also continue to have access to several research tools over the summer. The QNL has also claimed to have a vast repository of online collections with more than 380,000 ebooks and 200 databases with access to 60,000 electronic journals, newspapers, magazines and other media.
Its website got close to 4.5 million page views in the first year itself from all over the world, reflecting the richness and importance of the content. The Digital Library has received more than 2.5 million views. It has more than 1.5 million pages of historical records on Qatar and the Gulf.
Within a year, the circulation of books has reached more than a million. Now the library can boast of around 140,000 registered members and over 750,000 visitors.
As Milan Vasiljevic, Manager of Electronic Resource Management and Licensing, at QNL said, “The Library is no longer limited to reaching its members only when they are present within our physical space. We are responding to our members’ needs to offer knowledge development wherever they are, and the availability of digital services in English and Arabic is essential to this.
The increased use of the Library’s ebook platforms and apps over the past year confirms that our outreach is having the needed impact, so that no matter where in the world our members are this summer, they can remain within the Library’s community and be assured of access to knowledge and information.”
