Dubai Culture’s ‘Reading Box Initiative’ Receives the Arab Federation of Library and Information Award 2017

Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture), the Emirate’s dedicated entity for culture, arts and heritage, announced that the ‘Reading Box’ initiative has won the Arab Library and Information Award in the “Best Project” category at the 28th Annual Conference titled, ‘Social Media Networks & Its impact on Information Institutions’, which was held in Cairo from 27 to 29 November 2017.

The Reading Box initiative was launched on March 20 to April 2, 2017, entitled ‘A generation reads. A civilisation rises’ received large audiences from different age groups, and many school students participated in it. In addition to the variety of workshops and activities were organized focusing on increasing and supporting the personal growth of students, children and adults.

Commenting on the achievement, Dr. Hissa bin Masood, Director of Dubai Public Library, said: "The Reading Box initiative was recognized for its role in promote the habit of reading. It also enhanced Dubai Public Library’s mission in encouraging people to read. In addition to what this initiative has seen from various cultural events to encourage reading and endorsing it in society."

Dr. Hissa added: “The Reading Box benefited from the various programs offered which aimed to help people develop and make reading more useful and entertaining while having educational experts on ground to supervise the activities that awakened the audience’s interest. The second edition of the Reading Box initiative was organized in City Walk 2 with the aim of instilling a reading habit among different age groups in Dubai, as well as reflecting the vision of His highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to emphasize on the importance of positivity and the role it plays in stimulating success and high performance in different phases in life.”

The Dubai Public Library network includes eight libraries for adults and another seven for children. Some branches feature multi-purpose halls, classrooms and exhibition spaces and all branches of the Dubai Public Library are connected via computer systems. This has established close links with other modern libraries, providing access to vast sources of information on a diversity of topics in both Arabic and English