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Tehran, March 1, IRNA -- President Mohammad Khatami on Tuesday
inaugurated the new building of Iran's National Library in the
presence of cultural, scientific, political officials and foreign
guests.
photo: ISNA
Khatami paid a visit to various sections of the library.
The construction operations of the new building of the library,
which is among the most equipped libraries of the world, started in
1996 in an area of 97 thousand square meters.
photo: ISNA
The library has roomed over one million volumes of books in
Persian, Arabic, English, French, German, and Russian languages. Some
400 to 600 thousand volumes will be increased to the library in the
next 10 years.
Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Ja'far Tofiqi,
Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ali Abdolalizadeh, Interior
Minister, Abdolvahed Moussavi Lari, Head of the International Forum
for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thoughts, Ayatollah Mohammad Ali
Taskhiri, and Head of Iran's Islamic Culture and Relations
Organization (ICRO), Mahmoud Mohammadi Araqi, as well as head and
officials of Iran's National Library attended the inauguration
ceremony.
The English-language paper 'Iran Daily' Tuesday quoted Head of
Iran's Documents and National Library Organization and the Islamic
Encyclopedia Center, Kazem Moussavi Bojnourdi, as saying that the
library has seven sections, which include books on Islamic studies,
Iranology, human sciences and technology and other fields of study.
"In addition to these sections, an area of some 20 thousand square
meters has been allocated for storing books," he said.
photo: ISNA
Bojnourdi added the library has enough space for keeping seven
million books and the government plans to help the library complete
its treasuries.
The official said the library reserves the right to purchase books
from foreign countries.
"We have no problem for buying books even from the countries with
which we have political problem," he said.
The official added Iran mainly purchases books from the North
African and Far Eastern states, but some part of books are bought from
the European countries and the United States.
photo: ISNA
Bojnourdi said 300 billion rials has been till now spent for the
new building of Iran's National Library and currently only 60 percent
of the building is operational.
The building's architecture is unrivaled in the Middle East, he
boasted.
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