Number of books in libraries on rise in Turkey

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - The number of books in Turkish libraries reached nearly 64.5 million in 2017, up 2.7 percent from 62.8 million in 2016, Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced on Tuesday.

The country had over 28,000 libraries -- national, public, university and formal and non-formal education libraries -- as of the end of 2017, according to TurkStat's report.

"In 2017, there were 1 national library, 1,146 public libraries, 564 university libraries and 26,415 formal and non-formal education libraries in Turkey," TurkStat said.

TurkStat data also showed that, last year, there were nearly 29,000 libraries in Turkey.

The number of books in the national library were 1.4 million, up 8.6 percent year on year in 2017, and the number of beneficiaries of it decreased 1 percent to nearly 630,000 in this period.

Public libraries had nearly 20 million books, university libraries had 16.5 million and formal and non-formal education libraries had 26.7 million books in the last year.

The national library had nearly 26,500 registered members, while public libraries have over 2.2 million and university libraries have 3.8 million in 2017.

TurkStat will release next report on libraries in August 2019.