Dispelling the notion of a city home to libraries in poor shape

Despite Istanbul’s state-of-the-art library of extensive and historic Islamic works, not one Turkish library was featured in Turkish photographer Ahmet Ertuğ’s latest exhibition of 10 historic libraries from around the world, which was recently put on display at the National Library of France in Paris.

According to Ertuğ, Turkish libraries are in such bad condition that they do not merit space within his work. Perhaps the artist has not yet visited the historic library of the Research Center for Islamic History Art and Culture, or IRCICA. The pristinely presented home to 400,000 specialized books and artifacts is organized by a state-of-the-art electronic system, which enables thousands of years’ worth of history to be enjoyed and appreciated in the simplest way in the 21st century.

Last week, the IRCICA opened an extension to its library in the Yildiz Palace Armory. During the opening ceremony of the library, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the library’s new building, which he called one of the most beautiful architectural sites in Istanbul, was home to a vast international collection of books that merge civilizations of the religious past and present.

The library was first opened through the initiative of the secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, in 1980 with the aim of creating a reference library specializing in Islamic culture and civilizations.

"The library started with nothing. There was one room, one man, no books and no documents," head of the library Abdullah Topaloğlu told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. The library developed and grew primarily through İhsanoğlu’s personal efforts. Many of his friends donated collections and contributed to the growth of the collection, which comprised sources on the Islamic world and its civilizations, geography, art, language and literature.

Once the library had collected a substantial number of books in 1983, it started an active publication exchange program with libraries across the world, which has now grown to an exchange between 75 countries and 582 organizations. The library’s rapid growth was the motivation for the extension.

Before the new library had been built, the books were overflowing from the shelves and many had to be moved to the stockrooms as there was no space for them to be displayed, said Topaloğlu. "These books are suffering torment in the small space and are long due for a new home," Erdoğan said.

Walking into the library extension in the armory, the immaculate organization is striking. When the Daily News asked what kind of labor force it took to establish such order, Topaloğlu launched into a technical speech about "intelligence shelves" and "Integrated Library Systems."

The library uses the ILS to order, acquire, receive and invoice, catalog, circulate, track and shelve materials. The library also uses a radio frequency identity system, or RFID, which is hidden behind the authentic classification labels to track down the books using radio waves. By sliding the hand-held scanners across the shelves of books, the RFID system notifies the user when the book is found.

"Through this method, researchers can conduct their own searches independently without having to be assisted by librarians," Topaloğlu said. The head of the library highlighted that through the library renewal process, they wanted to use the most modern equipment in order to make research as easy as possible, but they wanted to achieve this subtly without taking away from the authenticity of the historic display that is fitting with the architecture of the armory.

In another attempt to bring the library into the 21st century, the IRCICA also launched a digital e-library that can be accessed online. This is a computer-based system that creates digital databases, purchases digital materials, organizes, stores, converts them to digital form and presents them for access to end-users. According to Topaloğlu, this is the first digital library in Turkey that meets international standards.

"We do not merely scan the books and archives into the system so people can read them. We are using an interactive database where the books are read out by the computer in different languages, and extensive searches can be performed so that researchers can easily find specific content within the books," Topaloğlu said.

In addition to books, the library holds a large collection of maps, photographs, slides, cassettes, CDs and DVDs in their archive. There are also displays of books and prints published by Ibrahim Müteferrika Ğ the first Muslim to run a printing press with movable Arabic type. His volumes, printed in Istanbul, are unique through their use of custom-made fonts.

The main library archives can be found at the new armory exhibition. Special collections from the likes of Zaki Ali, Vedat Eldem and Ahmed Ateş can be found in the original building opposite the library. The library is open to the public, and more information can be found on their Web site, library.ircica.org.