Amina Elbendary surfs the official Nasser website Hosted by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Nasser Foundation at <http://nasser.bibalex.org, this website devoted to President Gamal Abdel-Nasser is a pioneering effort in Egyptian and Arab information media and documentation. User-friendly, and with useful search options, it is free of charge and does not require registration. The idea behind the Nasser website is to document the life and work of Nasser himself. This is no small feat as anyone who has tried to research the modern history of Egypt knows only too well, and many of the documents placed online here are not available elsewhere. The site includes many of Nasser's private papers, for example, which have been scanned and made available in digital format. These papers include private letters to and from Nasser, including correspondence with his father, family and friends. Of particular interest is his correspondence from the battlefield during the 1948 Palestine War. Catalogued by date and by subject, such documents are quite rare in Egyptian historiography, as private and family documents have more often than not been lost. In addition to Nasser's private papers, the site also includes images of official documents such as the decree abolishing the monarchy in 1953, another dismissing General Mohamed Naguib from office as first president of the new Egyptian republic, and a third dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood. The basic texts of the July regime are included on the site, such as the regime's first communiqué after seizing power and the National Charter of 1962. Nasser's speech announcing the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company in 1956 and his declaration of 30 March 1968 are available both as texts and as sound files. Indeed, there is a special section on the site that includes recordings of 1,359 of Nasser's speeches, these being catalogued by occasion and date. A special search option allows easy navigation of these speeches in Arabic, allowing the user to search for words both in the title and in the body of speeches. Thus, "dimuqratiya" (democracy) returned some 252 hits. The site also hosts an extensive photographic gallery containing some 51,000 images from the period and relating to Nasser and the regime. These are arranged by occasion and date and also have their own search option. Official photographs of Nasser recording his activities as president as well as portraits are included. Also included are the texts of Mohamed Hassanein Heikal's column Bisaraha, which ran primarily in Al-Ahram during his tenure as editor-in-chief but also in Akhbar Al-Youm, Akher Sa'a and other publications at various periods. Heikal's close working relationship with Nasser makes these columns an important source for the official line in many of the issues facing Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s and for background information on events occurring in the Arab world both at the time and later. The Nasser website is the brainchild and work of Nasser's daughter, Hoda Abdel-Nasser, professor of political science at Cairo University. This explains various emphases in the materials published as well as various lacunae, yet had it not been for Hoda Abdel-Nasser's enthusiasm and perseverance the material would not have been collected in the first place. It also helps explain why similar material for Egypt's other presidents and pioneering public figures has not yet been archived, catalogued and made available to the public. It is to be hoped that the success of this site will prompt the Alexandria Library to pursue its documentation projects further and extend them to other historical figures. Meanwhile, the present site bears the mark of Hoda Abdel-Nasser, and the fact that she is above all her father's daughter is made clear in material on the site, among them her biographical notes on her father. While it may be anachronistic to talk about "bias" in this era of postmodernism, when, we are told, everyone and everything is by default biased, it is still laudable to try to balance one's arguments or standpoint. Thus, while is understandable that Hoda Abdel-Nasser should wish to present her father in the best possible light, it would also help that cause if the site were to present other viewpoints. It is understandable that the Nasser website should not be an anti-Nasser propaganda tool: however, in the interests of meaningful research more material relating to the historiography of Nasser and the Nasser period could be referred to, if not also made available online. Hoda Abdel-Nasser's biographical notes on her father refer extensively to his school days, for example, and to his participation in protests and demonstrations against the governments of the ancien régime, painting a picture of him as a revolutionary from an early age. This picture of Nasser as dissident is quite different from the picture that later generations of Egyptians might have had of him, when dissidence had given way to authoritarianism. Hoda Abdel-Nasser's biography of her father also substantially ends with Nasser's becoming president of Egypt in 1956; no mention is made of events from then until his death in 1970. Such an approach avoids tackling controversial issues related to Nasser's legacy as president, including the regime's attitude towards various opposition movements, its involvement in the Yemen war, the June 1967 defeat and its curtailment of democratic processes. Perhaps the most important section of the site is the one including official documents from Egyptian, British and American archives. The Egyptian section is limited to Nasser's private documents referred to above, as well as to the minutes of meetings of the Central Committee of the Arab Socialist Union from 1968 to1970 and to 134 official decrees of the RCC from 1952-1957. Though all these documents are in the public domain, they have not previously been made available in electronic form, and once again the site's search engine makes navigating through them much easier. However, this section of the site could have benefited from the inclusion of further introductory material to these collections, as well as from some indication of the nature and development of the Central Committee and the RCC. While this is not a complete collection of Egyptian documents relating to the revolution or even to Nasser's career as such, it is an important beginning in the effort to write the history of modern Egypt, especially as much of the state's archives from the revolutionary period onward has not yet been released into the public domain. A section of the Egyptian archives on the site includes a chronology of Nasser's official activities as president, compiled from press reports and newspaper headlines. Thus, by searching for "United Arab Republic" one gets 286 entries starting with 1 February 1958, for example, when "President Gamal Abdel-Nasser announces the birth of the United Arab Republic in an important speech at presidential headquarters." This section is a useful tool for students, researchers or journalists wishing to check particular historical facts, and it could be put to many uses. One could search to see how many times it was announced that the president had met with a particular national or foreign figure, for example. Search for the Muslim Brotherhood, however, and you get zero hits, but search for Sayyid Qutb, the Brothers' ideologue executed by the regime in 1966, and you get three hits relating to his trial, which in itself says something about the parameters of the collection. The archives on the site from the British Public Records Office bring together a collection of papers on Egypt, Nasser and the Middle East from 1919 to 1995, making this an amazing tool for researchers from various fields. Similarly, 16 American foreign relations volumes with 7,968 documents culled from presidential libraries, the US Departments of State and Defense as well as the National Security Council are made available here. While this is not an exhaustive collection of the documents on Egypt available at either the British or the American official archives, the focused scope of the collection and the ease with which the documents can be accessed makes it an extremely useful tool for research. When the user searches for a term or a document number, for example, two clicks later she is directed to a scan of the document itself, and all free of charge. This will be an essential tool for many researchers, especially those from the Arab world who often are not able to travel easily to Europe or the US to inspect documents first hand or who do not have the funds to order such documents. However, both of these sections could have benefited from further introductory material showing users how to search for documents and explaining the scope of those included since the present introductory material is rather cryptic. The site also includes supplementary material that is not directly to do with Nasser but rather refers to the wider history of the period. There are documentary films recording the main events of the era going back to the late 1940s, for example, and including footage from the Palestine War. Most of these films are only a few minutes long, but of particular interest is a 30- minute sequence of Nasser's funeral in 1970. While the site's editors do not explicitly say so, it seems likely that this material comes from the official news gazette that used to be broadcast in cinemas before the main feature, and this also makes the material an important source for Egyptian media history. Among the supplementary materials is a section on Nasser and culture. This includes many of the patriotic songs associated with the July revolution, as well as political cartoons from the period, works of art, coins, and stamps. Unfortunately, the cartoons have not been catalogued by date or artist, so one has to navigate through all of them to get an idea of the collection. The publications in which the cartoons appeared have also not all been identified, making it difficult to trace developments in arguments and political attitudes. The collection of 34 paintings on the site brings together Egyptian art work that is now rarely exhibited. The Nasser website is a welcome addition to Egyptian cyberspace. It is a pioneering experiment in digital archiving, and it suggests possible avenues for future expansion and growth. Certainly as the site grows it could make room for material contesting the view presented here of Nasser's legacy. In addition to the official and private documents already made available a thorough bibliography, for example, of published material on Nasser in various languages would be very useful. Similarly, an essay summarising the historiographical debate would not be out of place. Naturally, more documents from other foreign archives and ultimately also from the Egyptian State Archives would also be welcome additions. As the Alexandria Library expands its digital collection, it is also to be hoped that it will provide more of the kind of basic and fundamental texts that appear here. Such texts could include the various historical constitutions of Egypt, for example, including the current one, main state treaties and declarations, and important official speeches. Perhaps even the official gazette, Al-Waqai' Al-Misriyya, could be placed online. These are all official documents in the public domain to which all generations of Egyptians should have unfettered access, and they are documents that all researchers need to refer to at one point or another.
