Bahrain Mirror (Exclusive): Awal Centre for Studies and Documentation is to launch on Thursday, June 2, 2016 Awal's "Online Search Engine" during a special celebration, marking International Archive Day to be held at Librairie  Antoine in the Lebanese capital Beirut at 6 PM.

The archival meeting, entitled "Archives: Preservation of Existence" will present the special search engine dedicated to Bahraini-related content that comprises over 45,000 documents in both English and Arabic.

Awal Centre said that the search engine is an information retrieval system that contains Bahraini-related documents in a private server, based on archival rules, conforming to academic standards. This archives database is available online to anyone interested.

According to Awal, this search engine is considered the first dedicated to Bahrain-related archives. The search engine includes more than 40,000 documents and is provided with over 2,500 documents in both English and Arabic on a monthly basis.

The studies and documentation center that works on archiving projects on Bahrain and the Gulf further stated that this move was made due to the significant role the documents play in preserving the nation's identity.

"An archive is the documentary product of human activism proving the existence of something. Every existence passes through stages of conflicts with others who seek to eradicate it. Hence, he who has a live and real archive prevails; this is how human existence achieves victory in life," explained Awal.

It also noted that wars have destroyed a large portion of the Arabian Peninsula's archives. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, said that this destruction is a "war crime", for "destroying the cultural heritage of mankind" is considered a crime, according to the Treaty of The Hague".

Arabic Version