Al-Hadi database for Arab intellectual production in the field of libraries and information: Case Study

The study seeks to describe and analyze Al- Hadi database from its various aspects to identify its capabilities and the most prominent challenges that require solutions to overcome them. The study depends on the descriptive analytical method and is based on browsing and examining the database. The results of the study indicate that the database includes 34092 articles, most of which are articles by 56.88%, then conference papers by 15.78%, followed by books by 14.49%, then university theses by 10.21% and chapters of books by 2.64%.
It was also found that the database covers materials published in 22 Arab countries in addition to some writings published outside the Arab world by Arab authors, and that the coverage extends over about forty years from 1975 to 2016. The database provides bibliographic data, and it provides browsing services by topic, periodical, conference, genre and the year of publication, it also provides a search service, whether simple or advanced. The database suffers from the difficulty of inventorying materials throughout the Arab world, and the competition of commercial databases that provide full texts. This requires the establishment of a network of correspondents in the Arab countries and work on developing abstracts and studying the possibility of providing some full texts and/or links to them according to certain conditions