Collections and Resources

Collections and Resources

The Central Library and Documentation Center of the University of Tehran contains over one million documents including printed books, periodicals, manuscripts, microfilms, photographic copies, historical documents and pictures, lithography books, dissertations, scientific documents, maps and textbooks and electronic resources.

Printed Books:

The collection of Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and Arabic books in the library is currently over 300,000 volumes, which is being added over time. All books published in Iran since 1989 with a publication of over 2,000 copies are currently available at the library.  Also since 2000, the Central Library and Documentation Center has acquired a copy of all the major journals of the country.

The collection of Latin printed books, which includes over 110000 volumes, is in English, French, German, Russian, Italian and some other languages. Islamic studies, Iranian studies, and Oriental studies are some of the main topics covered by theses collections. In addition, many dictionaries and references are maintained in the library. The bibliographic information of all cataloged books is accessible through the central library website.

Periodicals:

The Central Library and the Documentation Center is one of the richest Iranian libraries in periodicals. Today it includes around 2,500 Journal titles and around 934 titles of Persian newspapers. The library's holdings also include over 1,500 Journals in English, French, German, Italian, Russian and other languages. The cataloging of books and periodicals is done according to the United States Library of Congress's classifications as well as the National Library of Iran classifications.

The current Persian periodicals include 2570 Persian journals which are compiled in 30,000 volumes and 1937 Persian and Arabic journals compiled in 8700 volumes. So far, about 483 titles of these journals as well as 620 titles of newspapers have been scanned. These are beside 256 journals and 54 newspapers of the Qajar and Pahlavi times which have been scanned and are available to the researchers.

The library's holdings also include over 2550 journals and 102 newspapers in English, French, German, Italian, Russian and other languages which are compiled in 31000 series. These periodicals are searchable and available to visitors.

Manuscripts:

The collection comprises 17,000 volumes of manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. Many of these copies have been written by famous authors and scholars of medieval and modern times.

The collection is retrieved through the 21-volume list of the manuscripts of the central library and the published catalogs of the manuscripts in the Departments of Persian literature, theology, medicine, and law as well as the computer network of the library. The manuscripts are kept on the fourth floor of the library.

Historical Documents:

The collection of historical documents contains about 60 thousand pages of commands, decrees, letters, endowment papers, marriage deeds and financial documents.  A document dated 866 A.H., related to the management of the endowed property of Sultan Sheikh Mahmoud, two series of documents related to Safavid period and a collection of documents and letters written by contemporary figures including Seyyed Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh are just some of the remarkable documents of this collection.

The collection is currently being organized and cataloged and some of its papers which can be retrieved through printed manuscripts are kept in the library's manuscripts treasures.

Microfilms and Scanned Copies:

The library holds a valuable set of manuscripts including historical documents, microfilms, pictorial manuscripts, rare books, lithography books, historical photos and handwriting of scholars and politicians. This collection includes about 17,000 volumes of manuscripts in Persian as well as other languages.

This collection contains about 8,500 microfilm loops and 7,500 scanned volumes. A large part of this collection are the scanned manuscripts of libraries both inside and outside the country. Many of the microfilms of this collection are made from the manuscripts in the Central Library in order to preserve the valuable copies and also to present the image to the applicants. The images of some periodicals are also another part of this collection. This collection is compiled in three volumes and is stored in a special reservoir on the fourth floor.

Theses and Dissertations:

Today about 90,000 titles of theses and dissertations are maintained in the library which are added up to 450 new titles per month.  This collection contains Persian and Latin theses in three undergraduate degrees (since 2007, the center does not accept undergraduate theses), master's degree and doctoral degree. The collection of theses and dissertations in three printed forms (since 2013 the central library receives only a compact disc of the thesis), compact discs, and backing up on central library servers are archived and maintained.

The first theses of this collection belong to the high school and dates to 1312. Of the 90,000 titles of theses and dissertations, about 15,000 titles are still in print and stored in the sixth-floor reservoir. Retrieving this collection is possible through the following links:

 thesis.ut.ac.ir or searchlib.ut.ac.ir

Documents:

The collection encompasses reports, papers of seminars, organizational publications, orders, constitutions, statistics, almanacs, calendars and so on. They consist of 40,000 documents in Persian, Arabic and about 20,000 documents in other languages. Furthermore, the collection contains the sources of non-book published works of some organizations, ministries, parliament, universities, institutes, and centers that have been donated to the Central Library in recent years. However, with the development of specialized libraries and archives in each of the ministries and organizations, the role of the Central Library in preserving these types of documents has diminished.

Some of the resources in this collection include yearbooks, guides, pamphlets, research projects, laws and regulations, and proposals from the University of Tehran. The work of cataloging and organizing this collection is currently underway. This collection is stored in a reservoir on the second floor of the library.

Textbooks:

It consists of 5000 volumes of textbooks taught at the Darl al-Fonoun School under the Qajar and textbooks of the Pahlavi period from 1306 to 1370. One of the oldest books in this collection is the textbooks of the Dar al-Mollalemin, Madrese-ye Siyasi, and Madrese- ye Nezami. This collection is stored on the second floor of the library.

Maps:

 This collection includes old and new maps of Iranian provinces and cities as well as the maps of different countries of the world. This collection encompasses 2000 maps of Persian, English, French and other languages. In addition, there are four lithographic maps such as "the map of all provinces of Iran" printed in 1870   at the governmental publication. These maps are currently being categorized.

Digital Resources:

This collection includes compact discs of books and scientific databases. You can find these resources in the Information Technology section of the Central Library.