Caption

---

Click to view caption

MODERNISING FAMILY READING: As "The Family Library" -- a national project aimed at encouraging Egyptians of all ages and social classes to read -- turned ten last week, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, the driving force behind the ambitious campaign, pledged to modernise the programme

At a Cairo Opera House celebration commemorating the anniversary on Sunday evening, Mrs Mubarak said that although, "The Family Library has acted as a cultural messenger aiming to reach out to every member of every Egyptian family, it still needed to opt for a more modern outlook."

The celebration was organised by the Higher Committee of the Reading For All campaign. "The Family Library" is part of the nearly 15-year-old Reading For All programme, itself the centrepiece of a wide ranging cultural campaign that Mrs Mubarak has been sponsoring for close to two decades. Nearly two-thirds of the close to 3.5 million books that have been printed under the Reading For All umbrella have become part of "The Family Library".

While books by literary greats like Rifaa El- Tahtawi, Tawfiq El-Hakim and Ahmed Rami, as well as newer writers, have been part of that collection, today Mrs Mubarak wants "The Family Library" to also include a touch of technology.

"With new and daunting [cultural and social] challenges upon us," she said, "we have to be up to [facing] them. We cannot possibly do this without modernising our efforts, to make them compatible with the requirements of this day and age." The millions of products in "The Family Library" will now go electronic. Many of the published titles will be translated into several foreign languages. Plus, more science and technology titles will be selected for publication by the campaign over the next few years.

"We are a nation that is pursuing modernisation and reform," Mrs Mubarak said. "And The Family Library will be actively joining this endeavour."

The Sunday ceremony included speeches by prominent novelist Naguib Mahfouz and Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who both commended Mrs Mubarak's efforts to make reading more easy and accessible for all Egyptians. Towards the end of the event, Hosni presented Mrs Mubarak with a special prize -- a miniature of the Rosetta Stone -- in acknowledgement of her commitment to the cultural cause.