On the occasion of the celebration “Jerusalem, as the Capital of the Arab Culture”, Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation in co-operation with the Center for Documents and Manuscripts at the University of Jordan organised a training course on cataloguing, under the title “Training Course on Cataloguing the Palestinian Manuscripts, Documents, Legal Records and Ottoman Administrative Papers (Defters)”, as a symbolic service to Palestine and as a contribution in preserving its written heritage through cataloguing, editing and publishing it.
The training course took place at the University of Jordan and lasted two weeks, from 6th until 22nd December 2009. It was attended by 22 librarians from different universities and institutions in Palestine, Iraq and Jordan.
This training course was considered the first of its kind in this area, as was not limited to the cataloguing of manuscripts, but also to the indexing of documents and legal records. Eminent professors in all disciplines in the sciences of manuscripts taught in this course, including Professor Ibrahim Chabbouh and Professor Adnan al-Bakheet.
The programme of the training course focused on the practical side of cataloguing manuscripts, through the Al-Furqan Standard Cataloguing Card. The program also included field visits to the following institutions: the Royal Jordanian Hashemite Documentation Center, the National Library of Jordan, Abdel-Hameed Shoman Institute, in addition to see the experience of these national institutions in preserving the documents, manuscripts and the records, as well as the methods of sterilisation, restoration, maintenance and electronic archiving.