Digitalizing the Kurdish Heritage Institute Collection

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is pleased to announce availability of funding through the Public Affairs Office (PA) for a project to build an online portal for Kurdish Heritage Institute (KHI) to store, archive, and document Kurdish cultural heritage materials and make the archives available to the public including academics, students, researchers, and those who are interested in culture of the region. The project will provide a complete program for digitizing online KHI archives, including a library of 15,000 special books as well as 3,000 culturally significant photos, 23,000 audio and video files. The awardee must include plans to preserve distinctive authentic cultural items and keep the materials from being lost, while at the same time making them available for the public through the development of a website for the institute. The duration of the project is expected to last 12 months, after which all materials will be digitized and available online for the public. The Governments of Iraq and the United States are committed through the U.S.-Iraq Strategic Framework Agreement to the establishment of affiliations between Iraqi and U.S. institutions to protect Iraqi Cultural Heritage.