Doha, February 06 (QNA) - The Qatar National Archive announced the holding of a cultural and orientation exhibition in March on the importance of archives and the role of documents and their ideas, as well as the role played by the Qatar National Archive starting from the idea of the document and archive until reaching the creation of the archive.

The exhibition primarily aims to explore those who desire to engage in research and studies and benefit from them, in addition to holding an annual forum for the Qatar National Archive in collaboration with all government entities and individuals throughout the whole year to purposefully retrieve the historic documents owned by those entities. This came during the open meeting held by the Qatar National Archive Tuesday at its premises in Mushaireb.

In remarks to Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Secretary-General of the Qatar National Archive, Dr. Ahmed Abdullah Al Buainain said that since its inception in January, the archive has been receiving generous support from the state institutions, affirming that the existence of the Qatar National Archive backs all ministries and institutions operating in preserving the Qatari patrimony.

The plethora of documents the archive possesses supports everything provided by those entities to safeguard the patrimony, he said, adding that for example when people talk about diving and traditional ships in Qatar, there are documents that address these topics from the British and Ottoman archives, as well as the existence of other documents that address the stage of diving, as per existing figures and records.

The Qatar National Archive includes documents available to public and private entities, as well as individuals who are considered part and parcel of the archive, Al Buainain elucidated, pointing out that it is well-known for individuals in the community to preserve a huge bulk of documents since the existence of this archive ensures the preservation of those documents. He added that there has been a remarkable turnout from some citizens who have been scrambling to supply the archive with the available documents whether through granting or borrowing them, as the archive is bound to serve those documents through maintaining and archiving them, with the importance of keeping copies of them when necessary to help academics and researchers accomplish their research.

Al Buainain added that the role of the Qatar National Archive is to help researchers and those interested in documents conduct research in history and science, affirming that no restrictions are imposed on them to reach out to those documents, and they are available for all people free of charge, whether they are researchers or those interested in research.

It is well-known that the field of research in history and science broadly depends on documents and the National Archive will provide membership merits for researchers and those interested in documents without restrictions to help them review the documents available in the archive and those available in other institutions abroad with whom the Qatar National Archive has signed cooperation memorandums, Al Buainain emphasized.

He added that Qatar has archives in the Ottoman and British archives and others, affirming that maintaining the membership will allow researchers to request those documents that can be provided.

Al Buainain noted the digital transformation which is considered one of the strategies on which the Qatar National Archive will work in the upcoming period, emphasizing that the archive will have a website that streamlines research and reading of documents for researchers in any country of the world in collaboration with the National Cyber Security Agency. 

Assistant Secretary-General of the Qatar National Archive, Aisha Khaled Al Saad told QNA that one of the Qatar National Archive's strategic goals is to raise awareness of the country's heritage via cooperation with state agencies, persons and private libraries to preserve the State of Qatar's historical memory.

    Among the Qatar National Archive's multiple roles are the collection, classification and technical restoration of archives and documents, the preservation of their confidentiality and setting mechanisms for monitoring access to them, said Al Saad. 

    The roles are based mainly on preserving the documents related to the State of Qatar, the GCC and the Arab and Islamic world along with the academic research conducted by researchers from Qatar and beyond, she added. 

Highlighting several recent visits by the Qatar National Archive officials to bring and scrutinize documents on Qatar and the region located in international archives and scientific centers, Al Saad said the process goes through several phases starting with searching for documents, classifying them, and coordinating with international and regional archives to obtain these documents or copies of them.

     She added that a working team had been coordinating with 35 state agencies on historical documents, with future plans to cover more than 80 state agencies. 

In the implementation of the provisions of Law No. (7) of 2023 on documents and archives, the Qatar National Archive aims to enrich intellectual activity, monitor the history of the State, and organize and supervise the collection and preservation of documents and archives. It also aims to enable access to information, records and documents and facilitate their use by setting standards and policies that regulate the process of managing public, private, historical and national documents in the country.

It is concerned with identifying all documents of historical value in possession of ministries and other government agencies or persons, and other documents and archives located abroad and determining the mechanisms for the Archive to obtain and transfer these documents and archives to it or to obtain copies of them. (QNA)