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Beyazıt State Library ( tr, Beyazıt Devlet Kütüphanesi; formerly known as the Ottoman Public Library) is a book depositary and digital library in Istanbul. One of Turkey's oldest libraries, it is the first national library of Ottoman manuscripts and one of the country's six legal deposit libraries. The library houses Ottoman periodicals, newspapers, magazines and other historical records. In all it contains 1.5 million published materials 900,000 books, 65,000 postcards, maps, cinema posters, 33,000 different magazines and more than 5,000 audiobooks. It was visited by nearly 140,000 readers in 2018 and hosted more than 67,000 readers in the first six months of 2019. It covers an area of about 3,000 square meters (0.7 acres) on the eastern side of Beyazıt Square..


History

On 24 June 1884, Sultan Abdülhamid II converted the soup kitchen of the Beyazıt Mosque into a public library, originally called the Kütüphane-i Umumi-i Osmani. The sultan worked with a carpenter to design the library's towering dark-wood book cabinets himself. In 1934
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 Surname Law (Turkey), until 1934 ( 1881 â€“ 10 November 1938) was a Turkish MareÅŸal (Turkey), field marshal, Turkish National Movement, re ...
ordered that a copy of every published material should be stored in the Beyazıt State Library. To enable this, the building was expanded in 1948 and again in 1953. Its service areas were also expanded and a building of the Faculty of Dentistry of
Istanbul University , image = Istanbul_University_logo.svg , image_size = 200px , latin_name = Universitas Istanbulensis , motto = tr, Tarihten Geleceğe Bilim Köprüsü , mottoeng = Science Bridge from Past to the Future , established = 1453 1846 1933 ...
(built between 1867 and 1876) was also donated to the library while Muzaffer Gökman was its director. In 1961 the Seventh Council of Higher Education formally changed its named to Beyazıt State Library. The Library's contents were transferred from other libraries, purchased or donated. Some books were donated by the Beyazıt Mosque since the library originally formed part of the mosque complex. It is regarded as a pioneering library since it introduced the first-ever
bookbinding Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book of codex format from an ordered stack of ''signatures'', sheets of paper folded together into sections that are bound, along one edge, with a thick needle and strong thread. Cheaper, b ...
workshops and children's library as well as the first
modern library The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
cataloguing system in Turkey.It holds a record for having archived 1.2 million books since its opening. The
1999 İzmit earthquake On the 17th of August, 1999 at 3:01 AM local time, a catastrophic magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of Turkey, causing monumental damage and 17,127–18,373 deaths. Named for the quakes proximity to the northeastern city of Izm ...
left cracks in the walls, requiring repair and the government of Turkey commissioned Tabanlıoğlu Architects to reconstruct it in 2016. The completion of the project cost $2 million with funds donated by the Aydin Dogan Foundation. In 2020 the restored Beyazıt State Library featured in ''The Daily Beast'''s article ''The World's Most Beautiful Libraries''.


Contents

When the Library was established, it acquired publications taken from 500 different libraries including the private libraries of state bureaucrats, palace officials, medrese teachers and mosques. The Library also contains an
early Quranic manuscript In Muslim tradition the Quran is the final revelation from God, Islam's divine text, delivered to the Islamic prophet Muhammad through the angel Jibril (Gabriel). Muhammad's revelations were said to have been recorded orally and in writing, thro ...
written on golden leaf, and the Arabic language and grammar book entitled the ''Kitabü'l-Me'sur'' which was written in 893 AD. Other titles include the ''History of the West Indies,'' which was written in 1580, and the ''Kitab-ı İklim-i Cedid'' (Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi) about the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...
. As of 2020, the Library has digitalised about 50,000 volumes 13,000 handwritten books and 37,000 printed materials.


Audiobooks

As Turkey's first national library, the Beyazıt State Library uses modern technology to make publications accessible to students and researchers around the clock. It also became the first library in the country to produce audiobooks for
visually impaired Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment†...
people. In 2020, an estimated 500 visually impaired people were making use of these audiobooks.


Awards and accolades

Beyazit State Library was nominated for the
European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award is a prize given biennially by the European Union and the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona, 'to acknowledge and reward quality architectural production in Eu ...
– Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017. It was also nominated for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2019 for the redesign of a historic structure by Tabanlıoğlu Architects. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) nominated Beyazıt State Library as a contender for a 'best new building of 2017' award in competition with 61 other projects. In 2016 it became the recipient of the World Architecture Festival award for its architectural structure. It also won the
LEAF Award The ABB LEAF Awards is an annual international architectural prize. It recognises innovative architectural design that sets the benchmark for the international architectural community of the next generation. The LEAF Awards program is operated by ...
Hospitality Building of the Year (Future) in 2017 and MIPIM award in the same year.


References


External links

* * {{Official website, https://istanbulbeyazitdevlet.kutuphane.gov.tr/ Libraries established in 1884 National libraries Libraries in Turkey 1884 establishments in the Ottoman Empire