Saudi libraries chiefs launch e-book borrowing scheme in Riyadh mall
Menawel (meaning, the handler) self-library device will be made available in Panorama Mall
Project aims to encourage reading in the Kingdom while improving access to information resources
Updated 20 July 2023
Hebshi Alshammari
RIYADH: Saudi libraries chiefs have opened a new chapter in their mission to promote reading with the launch of an e-book borrowing initiative in a Riyadh shopping center.
As part of an agreement signed between the Saudi Libraries Commission and specialist company Aswaq Almustaqbal, the Menawel (meaning, the handler) self-library device will be made available to the Panorama Mall.
The project aims to encourage reading in the Kingdom while improving access to information resources in public places, such as shopping centers.
The book borrowing and return scheme was launched by the commission in early June and named after the handler, a position held in Baghdad’s House of Wisdom during the Islamic Golden Age. Also known as the Grand Library, the Abbasid public academy and intellectual center played a major role in spreading science and knowledge.
Mohammed Al-Ruwaili, a member of the Abdulrahman Al-Sudairy Cultural Center, said: “The project aims to promote reading and knowledge as a basis for sustainable development.
“It plays a new role that adds to the learning values and roles of public libraries and improves them by adapting digital technology, e-networks. This will make access to reading educational materials easy.
“Those in charge of the project have hit a modern goal and will pursue it in the airport lounges and major malls in different regions of the Kingdom,” he added.
He noted that the service would probably be most used by young people.
Ibraheem Al-Sinan, head of the editorial team at Raff Publishing house, said: “We, as publishers, believe that libraries are the most important potential for literature and culture, which build the largest readership base in any society.
“If the libraries’ role ceased to reach people, an important chain of knowledge, literary, and cultural communication would be interrupted between the institutions that make content, and the reader.
“Many of the initiatives launched by the organizations under the Ministry of Culture follow a clear strategy intended to support and cooperate with all other bodies and aim to form a network of effective infrastructure that fully serves the cultural sectors,” he added.
OPINION: Saudi Arabia’s cultural continuum: from heritage to contemporary AlUla
The director of arts & creative industries at the Royal Commission for AlUla writes about the Kingdom’s cultural growth
Updated 12 February 2026
Hamad Alhomiedan
AlUla: Saudi Arabia’s relationship with culture isa long and rich. It doesn’t begin with modern museums or contemporary installations, but in the woven textiles of nomadic encampments, traditional jewellery and ceramics, and of course palm‑frond weaving traditions. For centuries, Saudi artisans have worked with materials drawn directly from their environment creating objects that are functional, but also expressions of identity and artistry.
Many of these traditions have been recognised internationally, with crafts such as Al-Sadu weaving inscribed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
Sadu weaving. (Getty Images)
This grounding in landscapes, resources, and collective history means Saudi Arabia’s current cultural momentum is not sudden, but the natural result of decades — even centuries — of groundwork. From the preservation of heritage sites and, areas, some of which have been transformed into world-renowned art districts, to, the creation of institutions devoted to craft, the stage has been set for a moment where contemporary creativity can move forward with confidence, because it is deeply rooted.
AlUla, with its 7,000 years of human history, offers one of the clearest views into this continuum. Millennia-old inscriptions at Dadan and Jabal Ikmah stand alongside restored mudbrick homes in Old Town and UNESCO-listed Hegra. In the present, initiatives like Madrasat Addeera carry forward AlUla’s craft traditions through design residencies and material research. And, each winter, the AlUla Arts Festival knots these threads together, creating a season in which heritage and contemporary practice meet.
Hamad Alhomiedan, the director of arts & creative industries at the Royal Commission for AlUla. (Supplied)
This year, that dialogue began in the open desert with Desert X AlUla 2026. Now in its fourth edition, the exhibition feels like the pinnacle of the current moment where contemporary art, heritage, and forward-thinking meet without boundaries. The theme of Desert X AlUla 2026 was “Space Without Measure,” inspired by the work of Lebanese-American artist and writer Kahlil Gibran[HA1] [MJ2] . The theme invited artists to respond to the horizons of AlUla’s landscape and interpret its wonder through their perspective.
Works by Saudi and international figures converse directly with nature: Mohammed Al-Saleem’s modernist sculptures bring in celestial-inspired geometry; Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons translates the colour of AlUla’s sunsets; Agnes Denes “Living Pyramid” turns the oasis into a vertical landscape of indigenous plants, . The 11 artists of this year’s edition were able to capture AlUla’s essence while creating monumental works that speak directly to our relationship with the environment.
Artist Performance at Desert X AlUla 2026 by Maria Magdelena Compos Pons and Kamaal Malak. (Courtesy of Arts AlUla and AlUla Moments)
In AlJadidah Arts District, “Material Witness: Celebrating Design From Within,” features heritage craft and material research from Madrasat Addeera alongside work by regional and international designers, showing how they translate heritage materials into contemporary forms.[HA3] [MJ4]
Music adds another element of vitality, filling the streets of AlJadidah Arts District, with performances supported by AlUla Music Hub, featuring local musicians.
The opening of “Arduna,” the first exhibition presented byof the AlUla Contemporary Art Museum, co-curated with France’s Centre Pompidou, adds another layer to this conversation. Featuring Saudi, regional, and international artists, from Picasso and Kandinsky to Etel Adnan, Ayman Zedani and Manal AlDowayan, the [HA5] [MJ6] exhibition signals the emergence of a global institution rooted in the heritage and environment of AlUla, placing local voices in context with world masters.
Each activation in this year’s AlUla Arts Festival is part of the same Saudi cultural continuum, . This is why the Kingdom’s cultural rise feels different from rapid developments elsewhere. The scale of cultural infrastructure investment is extraordinary, but its deeper strength lies in how that investment connects to living traditions and landscapes.
The journey is only accelerating. Rooted in heritage yet open to the world, the Kingdom’s cultural future is being shaped not by sudden inspiration, but by our traditions and history meeting the imagination and creative voices of our present.
