The Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: بنك المعرفة المصري) is an online library archive and resource that provides access to learning resources and tools for educators, researchers, students, and the general public of Egypt.

Establishment and aims

The initiative was announced on Science Day 2014 by the Egyptian President Abdel El-Fattah El-Sisi, was published online on Egyptian Youth Day January 9, 2016 during a celebration held at the

Cairo Opera House The Cairo Opera House (, ''Dār el-Opera el-Masreyya''; literally "Egyptian Opera House"), part of Cairo's National Cultural Centre, is the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital. Home to most of Egypt's finest musical groups, it is ...

, with a full access launch on January 23, 2016: The Egyptian Education and Scientific Research Council signed agreements with over 26 regional and international publishing houses to be included in the Egyptian Knowledge Bank,. Tarek Shawki, chairman of The Presidential Advisory Council for Education and Scientific Research and Dean of the School of Sciences and Engineering at the

American University in Cairo The American University in Cairo (AUC; ) is a private research university in New Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels, along with a continuing education program. ...

said in an interview with

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

that the project “...is an unprecedented attempt to spread the culture of knowledge and learning, and put a spotlight on the value of research.” At the Knowledge Summit 2018, talks were held about establishing the Arab Digital Union, a combination of the online resources of the Saudi Digital Library, Egypt's Knowledge Bank, and the Dubai Digital Library. Tarek Shawki, talking on the subject of the Arab Digital Union, has said that it will "...help consolidate the cultural exchange among the Arab nations, as well as help the growth of partnerships based on knowledge and culture.”

Usage statistics

Over 5,000 users registered on its first day with over 8 million sessions, reaching 69 million searches in its first 10 months.

Wider context

The project is part of a larger goal of education reform in Egypt, with plans to increase investment in research and higher education sectors, and is focused at supplementing the curriculum of schools and universities and on providing high quality resources to lower socioeconomic areas.

Overcoming access barriers

Access is free for all Egyptian citizens, estimated at over 92 million at launch, by using their National ID and email for registration. Seminars have been held in several public universities and

Youm7 ''Youm7'' (, , meaning ''The Seventh Day'') is an Egyptian privately owned daily newspaper. It was first published as a weekly paper in October 2008 and has been published daily since May 2011. It is published in Arabic. The paper was twice sele ...

has reported on how to register to teach users who are unfamiliar with the internet. Formal training for teachers is also available via The Teachers First program run by the Ministry of Education.

Content known to be indexed

Online Library resources include: * Atomic Training * Acland's Video Atlas of Human Anatomy *

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

Cell Press Cell Press is an all-science publisher of over 50 scientific journals across the life, physical, earth, and health sciences, both independently and in partnership with scientific societies. Cell Press was founded and is currently based in Cambri ...

* Cengage Learning e-textbooks * The Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International *

Chemspider ChemSpider is a freely accessible online chemical database, database of chemicals owned by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It contains information on more than 100 million molecules from over 270 data sources, each of them receiving a unique ...

* ClinicalKey * Dar Al Mandumah *

Discovery Education Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1982, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chan ...

* Doctrinal Plus *

EBSCO Information Services EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of many types around the worl ...

Elsevier Elsevier ( ) is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell (journal), Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, ...

Emerald Publishing Emerald Publishing Limited is a scholarly publisher of academic journals and books, headquartered in Leeds, England. Originally focused in the areas of social sciences and management, including management, business, education, and library stud ...

Encyclopedia Britannica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

The Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871,Engin ...

LexisNexis LexisNexis is an American data analytics company headquartered in New York, New York. Its products are various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper searc ...

National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly ''The National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as ''Nat Geo'') is an American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine ...

The New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. Founded in 1812, the journal is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals. Its 2023 impact factor w ...

* One Click Digital *

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

* Obeikan Bookstore *

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) is an online database that indexes, abstracts, and provides full-text access to dissertations and theses. The database includes over 2.4 million records and covers 1637 to the present. It is produced b ...

* Royal Society of Chemistry E-Books * SAGE Online Journals *

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

* Springer Journals & E-Books *

Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in the United Kingdom that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, CRC Press, Routledge, F1000 Research and Dovepress. It is a division of I ...

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

* Wiley *

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. is a Dutch information services company. The company serves legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare markets. Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a merger bet ...

Wolfram Mathematica Wolfram (previously known as Mathematica and Wolfram Mathematica) is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allows machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network ...

References

{{reflist Education in Egypt Library-related organizations