the past and the present of book publishing in kurdish language in ...

the congress. Turkish delegates at the congress objected to this and said thatif this proposal was accepted, Turkey would leave IFLA. As a result thedemand was not written in the final declaration (92).In Turkey the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has 1453 libraries. 1224 ofthem are public ones. 209 of the public libraries are situated in the 22provinces with predominantly Kurdish populations (93). There are noKurdish books even in the libraries of these predominantly Kurdishprovinces. I have not found any research on the reading habits of the Kurdswho read in Kurdish or Turkish.404.4.1 The National LibraryThe National Library of Turkey is attached to the General Directorate ofLibraries at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. According to my findings,there are 170 Kurdish books in the catalogue of the National Library. A partof them were published outside Turkey, and the rest – in the country.Apparently even during the period of the ban the library kept many Kurdishbooks. Probably state officials had access to these books at a time whencommon readers could not.According to the legislation, printing houses must send 17 copies of eachpublished book to the following institutions:To the Collection Directorate at the General Directorate of Libraries – 6, tothe Provincial Police Directorate’s Department of Security 4, to the nearestprosecutor’s office – 3, to the Provincial Press Bureau – 2, to the ProvincialProsecutor’s Office – 2.Copies of printed books sent to the Collection Directorate are forwarded tothe National Library. An employee at the library said that as there are nosevere sanctions for not sending books, some printing houses do not sendbooks to the Directorate. When asked how many copies of each publicationare kept by the printing houses to be forwarded to the Directorate, Kurdishpublishers have responded by figures varying between 10 and 21, possiblydue to the differing number of copies demanded by different printing houses.I found out that some Kurdish publishers do not know about theexistence of the National Library. Some do not know it is in Ankara,confusing it with other libraries. Some of them know that at least one copy ofeach published book must be sent to the National Library.The National Library publishes separate bibliographies of books andarticles. Kurdish books and periodicals are registered in the bookbibliography (Turkish National Bibliography). Kurdish fiction is registeredunder the heading “Eastern Hindu-European and Celtic Literature” - #891.59, and periodicals registered as # 891.5905 (94). Although theemployees at the National Library I talked to say that all books arriving there