Turkish publications in European library

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

The National Library offers the pre-Republic period publications to researchers. AA photo

Turkish publications from the web archive of the National Library in Ankara will be shared through the European Digital Library thanks to the European Newspapers project, according to reports.

The project undertaken by Berlin State Library and 12 European countries will digitalize Turkey’s centuries-old newspapers, which are written using the former Arabic-based alphabet.

“The system includes lots of articles, magazines and newspapers and all newspapers and magazines in the library’s collection have been digitalized,” National Library Director Tuncel Acar told Anatolia news agency, adding that the project won the third prize in the “Public Service” awards of the Turkish Informatics Association this year.

“We applied to the EU to improve this project and got a positive result. The EU will provide us financial support of 500,000 Turkish Liras next year to improve the project next year,” Acar said, adding that the project would be carried out with Germany, France, Holland, Estonia, Austria, Finland, Poland, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Serbia, Italy and Lithuania.

The National Library has already offered the pre-Republic period publications to researchers through the Periodical Publications Information Center, Acar said. “But the system is appreciated by researchers, who enter their password in the system, scan papers and also get visuals.”

The Periodical Publications Information Center also went into the finals of the ninth e-state awards this year, Acar said, adding that the result would be announced on Dec. 19 at a ceremony to be held in Parliament.