498 Cultural Life
 
Cultural Life 499  
 
   
 
 
  
  
 

Publishing and Libraries

  
 
The minorities living in Ottoman Empire established printing houses in Turkey shortly after the printing press was invented in Europe. The first printing house was founded by Jews in 1494 and the first book, presumed to be a commentary on the Old Testament, was printed the same year. The first book to be published was a Turkish-Arabic dictionary entitled “Lûgat-i Vankuli” and this was followed by other works.
 
The first private printing house was the one which used to print the newspaper entitled “Ceride-i Havadis”, first published in 1840.
 
All books used to be written and duplicated by hand in Turkey until the establishment of the first printing houses. The concentration of scholars in scientific pursuit especially in İstanbul, the capital, and other major centers of knowledge such as Bursa, Amasya and Manisa during the “golden age” of the Ottoman Empire (15th-17th centuries) prompted an increase in the production of manuscripts. Thanks to this heritage, Turkey is the richest country in the world  in   terms   of   the  number  of  manuscripts.  Turkey
 

Both domestic and foreign publications and works of art in all fields are
available in bookstores in Turkey
 
 
  
  possesses 300,000 volumes of manuscripts at present. Researchers all around the world benefit from these works in carrying out their scientific studies.  
 
During the period between the founding of the first Turkish printing house in 1729 and the adoption of the Latin alphabet in 1928, a total of only 20,000 works were published. During the next 50 years, however, the number of works published exceeded 200,000. Bearing in mind that this figure has multiplied in recent years, the significance of the Republic and the Atatürk reforms on the cultural life of the country is evident.
 
The number of publishers registered in the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) system rose to 14,153, the number of books with an ISBN increased to 224,942, and the number of periodicals with an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) jumped to 6,711 by the end of 2006. Furthermore, work began to give ISMN (International Standard Music Number) in 2006. The number of books compiled was 18,100 and the number of periodicals compiled was 3,134 in the same year.
 
 Libraries: Turkey has a 900-year-old library tradition. During the early years of the Ottoman Empire, libraries were incorporated in institutions such as mosques, turbehs, madrasahs (theological schools) and charities.
 

During later periods, although libraries were generally under the administrative control of the foundations, some libraries were established as independent institutions. The first library in this category was the Köprülü Library, founded by Köprülü Fazıl Ahmet Pasha in İstanbul in 1678. As the empire flourished, new libraries were established in many places in Anatolia. At present, some of the libraries which were founded by prominent statesmen and clergymen of the times and went on functioning through support by foundations still keep their collections. The Kütüphane-i Osmaniye, (Ottoman Library) which was founded in 1884 and still serves the public under the name Beyazıt State Library was the first library built by the state during the Ottoman era.