Saudi Libraries

Libraries in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are dedicated spaces to disseminating and supporting knowledge, culture, and science and providing possible services to those who desire them. They are also considered a cultural hub for all parts of society and are a primary source for scientific research and studies of all kinds. Libraries have received significant attention since the unification of the Kingdom by the founding King Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, who gave care and attention to libraries. Foremost among them is the Makkah al-Mukarramah Library, one of the most important and oldest libraries in the Islamic world. It was given that name in 1938, and a collection of books was donated to it. The library consists of twelve sections and contains more than 120,000 books.

The capital, Riyadh, did not delay in establishing libraries, which are considered hubs of knowledge, and enlightenment. The first public library was established there in 1944, founded by Prince Musaed Bin Abdulrahman. Then, in 1952, the Riyadh Saudi Library was established on the recommendation of the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Ibrahim Al Sheikh.

With the extensive cultural activity in the Kingdom, culture has also been given attention in development plans. The eighth development plan indicates an increase in the number of libraries of all types, reaching around 1,980 libraries, including 194 specialized libraries, eighty public libraries, 1,646 school libraries, and sixty university libraries.

The content of libraries has witnessed a vast diversity in the informational and scientific material embraced through hundreds of thousands of books and documents. The total holdings of these libraries exceeded 1.9 million books and documents, in addition to the holdings of major libraries, such as the King Abdulaziz Public Library, which includes about two hundred thousand items, and the King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (Darah), which contains about eight hundred thousand items, and the National Library which has about three hundred thousand items, and the King Fahad National Library with about 1.3 million items.

The cultural enrichment through libraries did not only depend on state efforts, but the private sector also contributed effectively to developing the cultural and media sectors by owning more than 321 publishing houses.

The public library sector continued its development, and there was also interest in and support for the endowment libraries. The King Abdulaziz Complex for Endowment Libraries was established in al-Madinah al-Munawarah by a decision of the Council of Ministers in 2016. It is considered a cultural edifice and one of the most famous endowment libraries in the world. The complex comprises thirty-four endowment collections and contains 1,878 handwritten Qurans, 15,722 rare manuscripts, eighty-four rare quarters of the Quran, and hundreds of thousands of printed books.

Official statistics in the report on the state of culture in the Kingdom for 2019 indicate a projected growth in the number of libraries at the community level. The percentage of Saudi families owning a private library in their homes reached 35 percent. The holdings of the King Fahad National Library increased to 479,773 titles (books). The number of libraries in the Kingdom of various types (school, university, public, specialized, national) reached 2,329 libraries.

Cultural development included the library sector in light of Saudi Vision 2030. The Libraries Commission was established in 2020 to organize and develop the library sector in the Kingdom, enhancing its fundamentals and supporting and encouraging its practitioners by developing sector strategies that align with the framework of the national cultural strategy and its implementation.

The commission is working on implementing a strategy to develop public libraries, aiming to increase their number from eighty-four public libraries in the regions of the Kingdom to 153 libraries by 2030. During this process, it seeks to achieve its objectives by encouraging financing and investment within its scope, enhancing related initiatives and projects to raise awareness about the importance of libraries, promoting reading habits, and contributing to the setting and adoption of educational and training programs.

In order to enhance the role of the Libraries Commission in enriching the cultural and knowledge landscape in the Kingdom, it launched the Public Libraries Development Initiative in 2020. It manages this initiative and works through it to transform public libraries into cultural platforms with a broad and contemporary social concept. This concept brings together all forms of cultural creativity.

King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh. (SPA)

The Kingdom possesses massive historical libraries that have a knowledge and cultural impact on both the national and international levels, including the King Abdulaziz Public Library. This library was inaugurated in 1987 with the aim of caring for matters related to books and their beneficiaries. The library's system was completed with the issuance of royal approval in 1996 for the establishment of a charitable foundation named the King Abdulaziz Public Library.

The cultural contents of the King Abdulaziz Public Library vary as it includes some of the earliest Arabic books printed in Europe and collections of Arabic magazines, with some dating back to 1860. The library has approximately 130,000 documents and over 35,000 rare books in the fields of literary, scientific, and cultural history.

The vast content of the library makes it one of the largest libraries on the global level. It also includes approximately twelve thousand manuscripts, over twelve thousand photographs, more than seven hundred maps, 9,500 rare coins, a thousand children's books, sixty thousand periodicals, and sixteen thousand academic theses. The number of books in the library increased to more than three million Arabic books across its various branches by 2020, in addition to books in international languages that cover both Arab and Islamic cultures.

Within its interactive cognitive role, the library organizes several cultural events and programs. It also implements specific initiatives to serve knowledge, as it created the Arabic Union Catalog to enhance Arab cultural content and document it digitally in 2001 to serve libraries and Arab and Islamic culture.

The pioneering initiatives of the King Abdulaziz Library also include the establishment of the Arabic Digital Library, which is considered a national and Arab project. Additionally, they continue to develop the Arabic Union Catalog project.

Among the pioneering initiatives in the library sector in the Kingdom is the establishment of the Saudi Digital Library by the Ministry of Education. This digital library provides a wide range of digital knowledge sources in various forms to serve researchers and interested individuals, including employees of public and private universities, teachers, students, and scholarship recipients.

In order to keep pace with technology and the latest knowledge-sharing systems, the Saudi Digital Library has become the largest gathering of digital knowledge resources in the Middle East, both in terms of size and the variety of sources it contains.

The library includes 169 international and Arabic databases, 446,044 digital books, sixty thousand scientific journals, 6,548,350 research papers, 5,224,410 university theses, 3,061,669 scientific reports, 461,004 multimedia items containing images and scientific films in various disciplines, and more than twelve million scientific articles in its information resources.

Among the prominent libraries in the Kingdom that have an active influence on cultural activity, the King Fahd National Library has been responsible for preserving Saudi intellectual production since the implementation of the filing system in 1993.

The establishment of King Fahd National Library took place in 1982, through an initiative by the residents of Riyadh City who came together to establish a public library bearing the name of King Fahd Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The project's execution began in 1986. The library's modern building has the capacity for over 2.4 million books, periodicals, and documents, with the potential for future expansion to accommodate 3.3 million books, periodicals, and documents, which will meet the library's needs for the coming years.