The Arabic Union Catalog (AUC) is a non-profit cooperative organization that seeks to serve the Arab culture and knowledge institutions in a collaborative environment between Arab libraries and information centers through a cloud platform that unifies the artistic work practices within Arab libraries and adopts international standards in Bibliographic Cataloging, as well as building Authority Files and Digital Content.

The AUC aims to collect Arab intellectual production - from within and outside the Arab world - into a single standard bibliographic database, whereas researches can access the Arabic digital content of institutions and libraries in the Arab world and around the world. AUC keens to introduce the Arab and Islamic culture, and support its presence at the global level, as well as establishing knowledge networking between Arab and international institutions and libraries through its cloud platform within a collaborative environment.

The AUC launched a clear vision for the development of practices and standards in the characterization of Arab knowledge and has since successfully responded to the challenges of developing technical processing practices for Arab information vessels. In the course of AUC journey over the past 13 years, it has built a standard database based on global standards to share resources, reduce costs, standardize cataloging and classification, and guide researchers to information resources location.

The AUC continuously seeks to expand its services to include a pioneering and innovative package of integrated knowledge solutions to enable cultural and knowledge institutions to meet the requirements of the knowledge era in light of the accelerating scientific and technological developments and the increasing needs of its users, enhancing its contribution to the community, enhancing its role as the first knowledge facility, and enhancing its ability to provide efficient and effective services that meet the aspirations of the knowledge society's beneficiaries.

https://www.aruc.org/en/home

• International

The AUC has a clear and compelling vision of what it intends to achieve and how that vision responds to a real need in the knowledge community that it serves. The AUC is fully supported by King Abdulaziz Public Library (KAPL), non for profit organization located in Saudi Arabia, that provides a wide range of capabilities, knowledge, and resources, including systems for fiscal management, accounting, personnel, and governance structures.

KAPL conducts continuous evaluation to keep the AUC on track with its goals and outcomes that improve the services and products. Part of the evaluation process that takes place is to assess the new development in the field of knowledge organization, thus the AUC has adopted the new international standards, the RDA Rules which is initiated by the Library of Congress and other leading professional bodies, also has started to enrich the bibliographic database with the digital contents.

The AUC has developed an effective channels of communication with the knowledge community institutions in the Arab World which requires the services that it provides. The AUC promotes its effectiveness to gain greater visibility and builds support with its stakeholders as well as its members.

The AUC project was initiated by a royal decree, thus it has a full support from the official highest level of the government of Saudi Arabia. Also, the AUC management board consists of 10 of the leading managers and professionals in the field, the board members meets once a year to approve AUC plans and review the achievements.

The AUC sustainability depends on the collaborative participation of members and their contribution to the enrichment of digital content, and this is based on the principle of sharing and mutual benefit where each digital content is carried once and used many times by several parties. Thus, each party contributes a small number and benefit from a large number and this is what achieves for members savings in effort, time and cost.

One of the most important factors that helps knowledge organizations to effectively participate in the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) is facilitating information access. The AUC helps the knowledge community and institutions in the Arab World like libraries, information centers, archiving centers, museums … etc. to build their knowledge databases according to the up to date standards and best practices, which as a result enable them to achieve the goals of sustainable development goals (SDG). Also, the AUC provides knowledge retrieval service to the general public through its portal.