TEHRAN — Amid the traffic arteries of Tehran, atop the hills of Abbasabad, stands the National Library of Iran — an institution that has become the guardian of the country’s written heritage.
Without such an organized center, a significant part of Iran’s documented cultural identity could have been lost among scattered collections and inaccessible archives.
Located behind the statue of Ferdowsi and surrounded by green spaces between Tehran’s busy highways, the vast complex of the National Library represents decades of efforts to collect, preserve, organize and provide access to Iran’s intellectual heritage.
According to Reza Shahrami, deputy director of the National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one of the institution’s most important missions is the preservation and organization of everything published as part of the country’s written legacy.
“A national library, in Iran and elsewhere, is established based on specific responsibilities assigned to it as a national institution,” Shahrami said. “Its main role is to collect, organize and provide access to the written heritage of a country.”
The National Library of Iran collects books, periodicals, dissertations, photographs, announcements and other valuable non-book materials. Without the institution, many rare and unique works — including single-copy manuscripts and historical documents — could have disappeared or become dispersed among different collections.
Beyond preservation, the library also serves as a central research hub, providing scholars with concentrated access to resources that cannot usually be found in public or specialized libraries.
Another major function of the institution is the creation of national bibliographic databases. Through the pre-publication cataloging system (FIPA), publishers are required to submit information about their books before publication, allowing the National Library to register and organize bibliographic data.
This database has become a valuable resource for publishers, writers, translators and researchers, helping them identify existing works on a subject and avoid duplication when starting new projects.
The National Library of Iran, in its modern institutional form, officially opened in 1937 in a building on 30 Tir Street in Tehran. However, discussions about establishing a national library date back to the late Qajar era, when intellectuals began advocating for a public institution accessible to all Iranians.
Before that, Iran had royal libraries, many of whose collections later became part of the National
Library’s holdings. The first major collections transferred to the institution included materials from the Library of Education, which originally developed within Dar al-Funun and contained around 5,000 books, as well as manuscripts from royal collections.
Iran’s tradition of collecting and preserving knowledge, however, stretches much further back. Historical evidence points to early libraries and archives during the Achaemenid era, including collections at Persepolis that preserved clay tablets containing administrative records and official documents.
Later periods also witnessed important centers of learning, including the libraries of Gondishapur during the Sasanian era, the library of Sahib ibn Abbad in Ray during the Buyid period, and the Rab‘ Rashidi complex in Tabriz during the Ilkhanid era.
Globally, national libraries developed gradually from royal collections. One of the oldest examples is the National Library of France, whose origins date back centuries to royal collections that were initially reserved for rulers and elites before becoming public institutions.
Other historic national libraries include the Austrian National Library, which traces its roots to the 16th century, and the Library of Congress, established in the United States in 1800.
Over time, the mission of national libraries expanded. Initially focused on preserving royal manuscripts, official correspondence and rare documents, they later began collecting the complete published output of their countries and making it available to researchers and the public.
The arrival of digital technology transformed these institutions further. National libraries began digitizing collections, developing databases and offering online services. Today, artificial intelligence represents the next stage of this transformation.
Shahrami said artificial intelligence could help transform the National Library’s vast resources into accessible knowledge, but Persian-language AI systems still face challenges due to limited high-quality data.
“The main issue is not the architecture of artificial intelligence systems, but the shortage of high-quality, structured and licensed Persian data,” he said.
Challenges include limited standardized text collections, insufficient labeled data, the incomplete digitization of manuscripts and historical resources, and the absence of comprehensive knowledge graphs for Persian written heritage.
The National Library is working with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to contribute as a national data operator by providing valuable content resources and developing metadata standards.
Under the planned cooperation, the National Library will provide the knowledge base, while technical infrastructure, computing resources and Persian-language AI model development will be handled by relevant technology institutions.
According to Shahrami, the first phase of the project is expected to take around one and a half years, focusing on preparing and standardizing data and developing initial language models. A further two-year period will be needed for systems to mature and reach broader usability.
The biggest challenges, he said, are not only technological but also involve creating standardized data structures, developing language models, training specialists and securing sufficient resources.