Iraq Receives Control of Online Science Library

As Americans work toward a military handoff to full Iraqi control, they are making an intellectual handoff as well. Iraqi people today gained control of an online library built in 2006 to bolster the country’s scientific research.

The Iraqi Virtual Science Library, sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, has been under the trust of a Congressionally financed nonprofit group for the past four years. Now the United States has announced the database’s handover to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Science and Technology.

“This was a great labor of scientific cooperation,” said Eric Dyson, of the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, which previously managed the online database.

According to the foundation, the number of publications by Iraqi scientists increased from 80 in 2005 to about 250 in 2009.

“In the past, the Iraqi system of higher education was world-class,” said Sarah Polaski, a project manager at the foundation. “Over time it degraded, and after the 2003 invasion, … university facilities were completely gutted.”

During Saddam Hussein’s reign, scientific research in Iraq was centered on weapons technology. A group of American scientists initiated the database project to help Iraq rebuild its educational infrastructure after many of its libraries had been looted or destroyed.

D.J. Patil, a research scientist involved in the online library’s creation, said in 2006 that the Department of Defense was concerned that Iraq’s lack of scholarly resources would cause the country’s scientists to move to other places to work on weapons technology.

Although the U.S. foundation will continue to offer assistance with maintenance, Ms. Polaski said, official control has been transferred to Iraqi leaders. More than 7,000 users are registered with the library, which serves nine government ministries and all public universities in Iraq.

“It’s been surprisingly successful,” she said.