e-Journal:
Digitizing Culture Yemeni Journals

In Partnership with the National Library of Yemen in Sana’a

Cultural heritage represents the values that should be passed onto future generations, whether tangible such as objects and sites or intangible such as customs, traditions, knowledge and language. It is the legacy of physical and tangible artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations.

The perception that the destruction of cultural heritage and property is insignificant only encourages the parties to the conflict to commit further violations. With the current state of idleness, the parties to the conflict have deepened their hostile view of a history that is incompatible with their ideology and are thus destroying the heritage in which they see a threat to their existence. 

Romooz is pleased to announce e-Journal: Digitizing Cultural Yemeni Journals. A project that aims to digitize cultural journals that were published in Yemen since the 1940s. The project will preserve those cultural journals with a focus on those that no longer exist today.

For the pilot year of e-Journal, we’ve partnered with the National Library of Yemen in Sana’a. The National Library of Yemen (NLY) was established in 1967 with funding from the State of Kuwait, which serves as the National Library of the Republic of Yemen. Yemeni Publications Law requires all newspapers, magazines and publishing houses to deposit five copies within NLY. The law was implemented until 2014; when the most recent war erupted in Yemen.

The Digitized Collection:

In the pilot year of e-Journal, Romooz has been able to digitize over 1,000 cultural journals. The journals digitized were part of cultural magazines that are no longer published. For the first time, the community of Yemenis inside and outside of Yemen as well as the community of Yemen-researchers will have access to the vast heritage of Yemeni cultural magazines from the 1930s until today. Romooz hopes that this lead to a renewed interest in Yemeni culture of the 20th century and will result in more research and cultural projects.  The digitized collection of over 1,000 journals is available within the National Library as well as Romooz to be shared with the public. Some of the digitized magazines include:

• Fatat Al Jazeera Magazine (Est. 1940)

• Al Hekma Al Yamaniyah Magazine (Est. 1937)

• Raidan Magazine (Est. 1978)

• Al Yaman Al Jadeed Magazine (Est. 1972)

• Aswat Magazine (Est. 1993)

• Dirasat Yamaniah Magazine (Est. 1978)

• Ghaiman Magazine (Est. 2007)

• Al Thawabet Magazine (Est. 1993)

Those interested in examining the collection, please get in touch with us as we transfer the collection to an online secure space for easier access for all. Please write to romoozfoundation@gmail.com with the subject line: e-Journal