Terms of Use

Welcome to the Arabian Gulf Digital Archives (“AGDA”). This site is published and administered by the National Library and Archives of the United Arab Emirates (“NLA”).

Anyone is free to access and use this website and, in doing so, agrees to abide by the Terms and Conditions detailed below. NLA wants to make the site as inclusive and useful as possible for everyone and this relies on you, our user community, behaving respectfully and appropriately.

The content of AGDA is for personal and educational use. For details as to how to use and re-use the content on AGDA, please see the section on Copyright and the Terms and Conditions below.

User participation

Users do not need to register on AGDA in order to search, browse, view or share content but users must register on AGDA in order to subscribe to news updates, leave comments or to create bookmarks.

AGDA provides user contribution spaces where users can participate online and contribute comments which may be published on AGDA to provide additional information and thoughts about the material on AGDA. User contributions are clearly distinct from NA’s official information and are indicated as “comments”.

If you do not abide by the Terms and Conditions, code of conduct or participation guidelines, NLA may delete your contributions and may suspend your account either temporarily or permanently.

NLA may update these Terms of Use at any time and users are advised to visit this page from time to time to check for revisions.

Code of conduct

In order to participate, please:

be respectful of other users
be factual and objective and cite sources used whenever possible
stay on topic and do not upload content (including links to websites and archival and bibliographic references) that is unrelated to the purpose of this site
ensure that you have the right to submit your text, images or other content and have not copied someone else’s copyrighted work without their permission and appropriate acknowledgement
do not use language that is offensive, inflammatory or provocative (this includes swearing and obscene or vulgar comments)
do not break the law (this includes, but is not limited to, libel, breaching someone else’s copyright, condoning illegal activity and contempt of court)
do not post any personal information relating to you or other living individuals (this includes, but is not limited to, names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and other contact details)
do not impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or an organisation
do not make any commercial endorsement or promotion of any product, service or publication on AGDA
do not post content which could cause damage to a computer, software program, network or server
do not post content which is for political purposes

Participation guidelines

While users do not need to register in order to search, browse or view content on AGDA, including content contributed by users, users will need to register in order to participate. The information that you provide must be true, accurate and current and you must keep this information up to date. To protect your privacy, user account and online identity do not divulge or share your registration details or other personal information after registration.

To register you need to provide the following information:

username – this is how you will be identified on the site
email address – this must be a valid email address. NLA staff may use your email address to contact you concerning your contributions
password – this is used to verify your identity for logging in. You should select a password which is known only to you and do not share it with anyone else

You have the option to edit your profile and cancel your account. If you choose to cancel your account, NA will close your account and prevent you or anyone else logging into that account. There may be a delay before the account is fully deleted.

Terms and Conditions

1. Definitions:

The following definitions shall apply throughout the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive website:

The Site means the Arabian Gulf Digital Archives, or AGDA

NLA means the National Library and Archives of the UAE

The Content means any audio, video, text, images or other material made available on The Site

User means any person or organization accessing The Site

Saved Sets means created folders containing bookmarks

Non-Commercial means without expectation of any monetary reward

OCR means elements of The Content that have been extracted by Optical Character Recognition

The Information means those elements of The Content where the copyright belongs wholly to NLA and includes, but is not limited to, catalogue descriptions (in English and Arabic) and OCR data of the records and documents published on The Site

Contributions means any material uploaded to AGDA or information posted on AGDA by User

2. Access to The Site:

2.1 By using The Site, User accepts and agrees to be bound by these Terms and Conditions

2.2 User may access The Site with the following limitations:

genuine researchers, students and academics are free to download, where permitted, The Content to use for Non-Commercial personal or educational purposes
User is not permitted to post copies of the downloaded images on any form of Social Media
User is not permitted to take screenshots of The Content and is forbidden from reproducing, altering, distributing or transmitting The Content
As an exception to clause 2.2, User may use and re-use The Information free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context

3. Credit and Copyright

3.1 User should refer to the Copyright section of The Site where details regarding Copyright and third-party rights are incorporated into these Terms and Conditions

3.3 In all instances, User should refer to The Content as having been accessed from The Site

4. Saved Sets and Comments

4.1 User is able to save search results from The Content to ‘Saved Sets’ to which comments about their research and details may be added

4.2 User agrees that the NLA will edit that research and/or comments before publication to The Site to ensure the veracity of the information and to ensure that the comments are suitable

4.3 User agrees that the information and/or comments are not those of the NLA and that NLA takes no responsibility or liability for the information and/or comments posted

5. Contributions

5.1 User agrees to grant NLA a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to hold, use, adapt, transmit, distribute and re-use Contributions

5.2 User agrees to abide by the Code of Conduct above

6. Abuse of The Site

6.1 Any User found to be violating or attempting to violate these Terms and Conditions may be stopped and/or prevented from further use of The Site. Violations may include but are not limited to:

Accessing details not intended for the User or logging into a server or an account that the User is not authorized to access, or
Attempting to conduct any test or survey for finding weakness of The Site or any system or network of NLA or violating applicable procedures or documenting them without an official permit from NLA, or
Attempting to interfere in the services provided on The Site by any User, host or network including but not limited to placing a virus on The Site, increasing load to or immersing it, sending commercial messages to it or avalanching it with electronic messages or destroying it in any manner, or
Sending unwanted electronic messages to The Site including commercials and/or advertisements on services or products or falsifying any dispatch control protocol package address/internet protocol or any part of the address details in any electronic message or sending news messages, or
Sending an e-mail, by or on The Site or on NLA’s behalf, whether by referring to it or assuming the identity of its name, involving offense or libel of the NLA or any person whomsoever, announcing any untrue news or information and ascribing it wrongly to The Site or to NLA

6.2 Any User found to be violating or attempting to violate these Terms and Conditions may also be subject to civil and criminal liability and, in appropriate cases, will be vigorously prosecuted through the UAE Courts and/or the appropriate Courts of other jurisdictions