New library must attract youth: Shaikh Mohammed

Dubai - Shaikh Mohammed directed the board members to work on attracting the best minds, books, intellectuals and linguists.

His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has chaired the first meeting of the board of directors of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Library Foundation.
He directed the board members to work on attracting the best minds, books, intellectuals and linguists. "We want the library to be a house of wisdom, where researchers gather, youth innovate, and knowledge gets drafted," he said. "We don't want the library to be a place for books, we want it a place to attract youth and enhance their cultural and knowledge soul.
"The library is part of our continuous effort to cement reading in society and making books part of life.
"You are a team of the biggest cultural project during the Year of Reading, we want it to be the largest knowledge project in the Arab world. We have allocated huge budget and great minds," Shaikh Mohammed told the board members.
Overlooking the Dubai Creek in Al Jaddaf area, the book-shaped library will cover more than 92,000 square metres and have seven storeys.
It will include a centre for conservation and restoration of historical manuscripts, and a museum section displaying rare artefacts from the Maktoum family collection. Plans for the library - which will be able to accommodate more than 42 million visitors a year - include hosting more than 100 cultural and intellectual events each year in its seminar and conference rooms.
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• Dubai