Hawzah News Agency –Speaking in a press conference held on the occasion of “Book, Library and Librarian” week, Hosseini gave a report on the performance of the organization, saying, “The organization owns 58 active libraries throughout the country with an area of over 100 thousand square meters.”
He added: “Around eight million people receive services from these libraries, while around one million and a half copies of books are borrowed, and around four million ones are studied at halls. Also, during last three years, about 250 thousand books have been donated to 180 libraries in deprived areas”.
According to him, AQR libraries own the largest archive of urban oral history in the Middle East with 20 thousand hours of interview, while possessing the oldest archival document in Iran. This organization is the only documentation center in the country that provides the interested people with digital copy of all its physical sources”.
Hosseini introduced increasing study resources, facilitating access of researchers and scholars to different resources, and developing digital library services for researchers as some of evolutionary approaches of this organization in its attempt for achieving scientific authority. “Developing scientific, research, and cultural collaborations at national and international levels is high-priority policy at this organization. “We do believe that these national and international interactions are one good way for cultural influence in the world”.
He also referred to signing of 20 national and five international memorandums of understandings as some other achievements of the organization.
In addition to organization’s services at cyberspace, he also said: “With respect to the closure of libraries during the Coronavirus pandemic, the organization, in a practical initiative, launched electronic resource lending through Digital Library system during which more than 12 thousand printed Persian and Arabic books became available to the public”.
He put the in-person clientele of AQR libraries as seven million people, saying: “With regard to the extensive closures during Coronavirus pandemic, in-person clientele of the libraries fell sharply. However, the organization kept its contact with the audience through development of virtual services and succeeded to attract five million new clientele”.
According to Hosseini, creation of an interactive system for contact, cooperation, question and answer, as well as scientific exchange of the researches was another valuable service of the organization to the academic clientele.