On World Book and Copyright Day that falls on April 23rd of each year, we look back to the renovation of the Fulbright Library which is now known as the Alan McNamara Library in 2020 which is the heart of the Fulbright House, in honor of the former Executive Director of Fulbright Jordan before his retirement.
On World Book and Copyright Day that falls on April 23rd of each year, we look back to the renovation of the Fulbright Library which became the Alain Mcnamara Library in celebration of the former Executive Director Mr. Alain McNamara leading to his retirement in the summer of 2020. Mr. McNamara served as the Executive Director of the Fulbright Commission in Jordan since its inception in 1994. He established the Jordanian-American Commission for Educational Exchange, also known as the Binational Fulbright Commission in Jordan, created under a bilateral agreement in 1993.
The Alain McNamara Library is open to all Fulbright grantees, alumni and Fulbright friends which they can use and borrow from, as well as socialize with each other. Over the last 27 years, the library also served as a space for many memorable occasions and events and has been used to conduct frequent events such as orientation sessions to grantees of various programs, host thanksgiving dinners, movie nights, and many others.
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Most notably, The Alain McNamara Library houses more than 2300 items of various books, publications and journals. The items fall under so many genres which makes the library diverse to serve all the needs of Fulbrighters which they can visit, and use the books or borrow them. Part of the renovation project was digitizing our entire library into an online system to make it easier for our visitors to browse our extensive collection.
The Alain McNamara Library fulfills the idea behind the Fulbright program itself that puts education above all and this library is one of the many valuable resources Fulbrighters can use to fulfill this goal.
The Library renovation project wouldn’t be complete without a beautiful quote by the Mr. McNamara himself from an interview we had with him describing the impact of the Fulbright program. That quote is one of the first things you see as you walk in and reads:
Amidst the pandemic that Jordan and the whole world is going through, the Fulbright team looks forward to resuming all the services and events that have been offered and hosted at the library for the past years so it can serve as the heart of the Fulbright House again.
