The Women and Memory Forum (WMF) launched the first phase of its Library and Documentation Center during a celebration held on 3 February 2010 at the Supreme Council of Culture in Cairo, featuring Dr. Emad Abu Ghazi, the Council’s Secretary General, as the keynote speaker.

During the celebration, Dr. Omaima Abu-Bakr, the WMF Executive Director and Board Member, presented the project at a glance, followed by a detailed presentation on the WMF Library and Documentation Center delivered by Dr. Heba Barakat who introduced the WMF online database, and explained the indexing process.

The celebration also encompassed an exhibition of Wedad Mitry’s private collection which includes her memoirs, personal notes, correspondences, and clips from newspapers on her feminist activism and advocacy for women’s rights in Egypt. Attending the WMF celebration was Wedad Mitry’s daughter, Dr. Reem Saad, a Professor of Anthropology at the Social Studies Center, the American University in Cairo. The celebration was attended by university professors, feminist and civil society activists, and researchers and scholars in women’s studies.

The Library and Documentation Center is a WMF project in collaboration with the Egyptian Universities Libraries Consortium (EULC). The project aims to establish a fully indexed and digitized online library accessible via the WMF website, and provide scholars and researchers with access to knowledge on women and gender through the WMF’s diverse holdings. The WMF Library has a unique collection of grey literature in the Arabic language, and a broad collection of rare periodicals and newspapers published in the Arab World, in addition to the private collections of pioneer Arab women.  

The first phase of the WMF Library and Documentation Center concluded with the launch of an online library catalogue via the WMF website – a step closer towards the full digitization of the WMF Library. The online catalogue makes available bibliographic information, content lists, and summaries of the WMF holdings. To access the online library catalogue, press here.