Library Services
In all IMM libraries, we offer services with more than 1 million books, printed publications, rare artifacts, annuals, newspapers, magazines, etc. Containing more than 500,000 works, Atatürk Library continues to be one of the first addresses of researchers with its high-quality and special collections including Ottoman printed books, periodicals, manuscripts, rare works in foreign languages, maps, postcards, annuals, calendars and personal archives.
Sevgi Soysal Library, located in one of the most central locations in Taksim, Afife Batur Library in the Gasworks Museum in Kadıköy and Muallim Cevdet Library in Kartal continue to operate 24/7.
Along with the number of our libraries, the number of readers and researchers using them is increasing day by day.
Events
While designing our events, we aim to be global, creative, and awareness-raising with the goal of a library that captures the present. We continue to organize events that nurture creativity, such as fairy tales, creative drama, and story writing workshops for children. In our 40 libraries, we read and discuss various books together at Book Clubs. In addition to our collaborations with IMM Heritage and IMM Culture, we bring various events to our libraries within the scope of projects we have developed with different institutions. All of our IMM libraries host these events.
Under the roof of Atatürk Library, we bring together names from different disciplines and organize talks where we converse and produce together. We care about the intellectual wealth in our libraries and we run this process together with valuable academics.
Collection Improvement
We attach importance to bringing together an up-to-date selection from different publishers with our readers and we add new works to our collections in line with our publication improvement policy.
With this perspective, we have purchased a total of 810,500 printed publications with our new libraries that were opened after 2019.
We have added a total of 31,482 rare works to our Atatürk Library rare works collection until 2024, including 30,265 documents, 943 photographs, 62 maps, 6 printed books, 4 Ottoman Turkish books, 19 newspaper - magazine materials, 5 posters and 178 postcards.
All works in our libraries can be accessed via the Atatürk Library website and http://katalog.ibb.gov.tr.
Digital Archive
The works in the Atatürk Library that have been digitalized until 2024 have been accessed a total of 5,307,206 times.
Our expert staff continues to repair valuable rare works such as Ottoman Turkish newspapers, books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, postcards, and yearbooks in the Atatürk Library. In 2024, we repaired a total of 12,243 bindings of different types, 29 maps, 138 historical documents, 4 photographs, 7,251 pages of rare works, and 2,102 pages of newspaper-magazine materials.
Donation Efforts Atatürk Library accepts donations of cultural assets and information resources within the scope of its collection improvement policy, in order to contribute to national and international research, education and training, to support the cultural development of the public, and to preserve the donated assets. Since 2019, a total of 211,693 donations have been sent to 1,203 institutions and those in need in different cities. Efforts for the Visually Impaired Located across the Eyüp pier, our Audio Library has 8 audio book recording studios, a skill development class for visually impaired children, and a library that contains Braille books. As IMM, we embrace the principle of equal citizenship and expand the activities of the Audio Library. Together with volunteer citizens, we are converting printed books into audio books in the library. We continue our publication studies, which we see as a part of intellectual production, in our libraries, which are centers of culture, art, and knowledge. Since 2019, we have published a total of 66 works and brought a total of 248 exhibitions in numerous venues to those interested.Exhibition and Publication Efforts
