Within the agreement concluded between the General Secretariat of the Central Library and the al-Abbas Shrine, and for the purpose of preserving scientific and intellectual production and the cultural heritage, the staff of the Department of Intellectual and Cultural Affairs at the al-Abbas Shrine began documenting the old heritage newspapers and journals found in the Periodicals Unit through careful photography. The director of the department’s Indexing and Information Systems Center, Mr. Hassanein Al-Moussawi, said, “The center’s staff began documenting old heritage newspapers, including (Al-Hadara Newspaper) issued during the Ottoman rule in Syria, which was issued in 1911 AD, as well as (Al-Madina Newspaper) and (Al-Adara Newspaper) which were They were published successively in 1911/1912 AD through micro photography.
He added, "Among the heritage that the Center's staff at the University of Basra is working to archive is (Basra Newspaper), which was published in 1889 and stopped in 1914. This newspaper was one of the rarities found in Iraq." Al-Moussawi stated that "the Center seeks to archive Old Iraqi and Arab newspapers and newspapers, in order to limit the intellectual and knowledge production in Iraq and neighboring Arab countries and collect and publish them within a unified project called (The Iraqi Gateway to Knowledge).”
