International Conference on Library 5.0 and Human-Centered Digital Transformation

Dear Nation, Dear representatives of our science, culture and art community, Dear young people, the architects of our future, Dear guests, With all my heart, respect and love, I greet you. I am very happy to welcome you to our National Library for the International Conference on Digital Transformation at 5.0 and Human-Centered. First of all, I would like to welcome all of you, including our guests from abroad, to the National Library of Turkey. I would like to thank our experts in science and culture for enlightening our horizons with their works and products I would like to thank our librarians, our artists, and all the people who contribute to our country and humanity. I would like to thank all the people who devote their lives to the library, and I would like to thank all the people who love books. I hope that the conference, which will start on November 4 and end today, will be a means of good for our country and our people, I would like to congratulate the members of the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium and the President of our National Library. Dear guests, dear young people, We are followers of the first commandment, that is, a belief that is read in the name of the Creator. Our scholars have seen knowledge as a commodity, and they have pursued knowledge throughout their lives. I have to express this first. We have a 1300-year-old tradition in the sense of librarianship. From the Umayyads to the Abbasids, from the Seljuks to the Ottoman Empire, from there to our Republic today, we have a serious accumulation in this field. Books and scholars have always been at the center in the cities we have built for centuries, in the states we have established, in the civilizations we have built. Books and scholars have always been at the center. Beytül Hikme in Damascus, Nizamiye Madrasa in Baghdad, Karatay Madrasa in Anatolia, Gök Madrasa, Sahn-ı Seman in Istanbul, Süleymaniye Libraries and many more. All these structures have spread knowledge and wisdom not only to their own environment, but to the whole world. Both mosques, foundations and Madrasa libraries have been the main sources of reliable information in both religious sciences and positive sciences. Scientists and students from Europe and other parts of the world have come to these centers to study science for centuries. With the knowledge and methods they have learned from here, they have prioritized the establishment of universities and libraries in their own countries. Even if our rights are not fully delivered, the contribution of our nation to the legacy of science and culture today is so great that it cannot be ignored. When you take a look at our history, one of the first facts that comes to mind is this, dear friends. Whenever we have given value to knowledge, whenever we have embraced the book and knowledge with four hands, we have achieved our greatest achievements in the history of the world at that time. We have brought our peace and security, our level of prosperity to the level we wanted at that time. However, when we have given value to science, knowledge and the book, we have fallen behind, weakened, lost power, and have come to a position of being followed, not being followed. I would like to share this anecdote with you here. Young people, this is very important. Yavuz Sultan Selim Han showed great respect to both scholars and loved to read. He even took his mobile library with him when he went on an expedition. On the return of the Egyptian expedition, he and Kemal Pashazade, the greatest scholar and scholar of the time, sat side by side in a scientific conversation on horseback. Meanwhile, Kemal Pashazade's horse's foot suddenly got into a hole, and mud splashed into Yavuz Sultan Selim Han's caftan. Yavuz Sultan Selim, who was extremely impressed with Kemal Pashazade, said the following wise sentence. Don't be sad, Hodja. The mud that splashed from the foot of the scholar's horse is not a source of sadness for us, but a source of pride. Then he returned and gave the following instructions to those who were present. Take this mud and cover my caftan with it when I die. Yes, I think this is an important reference in terms of showing the place where science and scholars hold in our history and civilization. Dear guests, dear book lovers, Our independent libraries, as well as our mosque and madrasa libraries, have started to rise since the second half of the 17th century. Libraries such as Köprülük Library, Atıf Efendi, Ragıp Paşa, Nuri Osmaniye and Hamidiyye have set an example in our scientific life for many years. These structures, which are all a treasure of knowledge, are not only for a certain section, but also for the use of the entire people. Anyone who reads, questions, wonders and wants to do research can benefit from these libraries. Of course, it is not necessary to express this pain and truth. Unfortunately, we could not evaluate this wealth of wealth, especially in the years of the one-party, which saw our republic as a break from the past. Our independent libraries, with their unique sources, have turned into a pile of bricks due to the insidious practices of the one-party mentality. With the resemblance of the late Cemil Meriç, the library has turned into a pile of bricks. Thick walls have been built between it and the past of many generations. The bond of the young generations, who are the luminaries of this country, has been weakened. Our children have been alienated knowing the value of civilization. Due to these policies, a large generation could neither remain conditional nor be westernized. Unfortunately, they were thrown from one stream to another. We have seen this in many areas of life, from the Turkish call to prayer to the ban on music, to the clothing and clothing that the late Aşık Veysel personally wore. We have experienced it, we have experienced it as a nation. Dear guests, Despite all the negativities we have experienced, we have managed to stand up again, to reintegrate in our roots and history. Look, today we are raising the bar higher and higher with our educational institutions, libraries and youth centers from pre-school to post-doctoral level. We continue to revive and develop our library heritage by hand-in-hand with our Ministry of Culture, Ministry of National Education, universities, foundations and local governments. As the President, we are leading this process. Five years ago, we won our National Library in Ankara and our country. With more than 5.1 million copies, we have made this place the third largest library in the world with 141.7 million sources. We have provided over 300 million electronic resources for the use of researchers. With a world library with 135 different languages from 112 countries, 13 main data bases, 233 sub-data bases, 125,000 square meters and 5,000 seats, meeting and seminar rooms, technology classes, open and closed car parks, dining rooms, cafeterias and a total length of 201 kilometers, we have made our National Library the service of our students, academicians and all our citizens. Last year, we welcomed nearly 2 million visitors and placed third in the world. There is no such thing as a word. It is an action. This year, as of October, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we have welcomed a total of 8.5 million visitors to our National Library. I am very pleased that our high school and university students have shown great interest in our National Library. I am also very pleased about this. Every morning at early hours, our bright children compete with each other to come to the National Library. We offer two meals a day to our young people who read, write, do research or prepare for exams. We offer 15 kinds of drinks and cakes for free to our young children here. In the first 8 months of this year, we have offered 5,927,000 free meals. Another important number is this. In our Library, we have received training without paying any fee for 17,642 participants in 1894 education and science workshops. Again, in the last 5 years, we have hosted 46 major exhibitions in our National Library. Dear guests, dear young people, I would like to express my great satisfaction. At the end of 2024, we broke the biggest record of all time by increasing the number of members to 6.7 million, the number of users to 38.7 million and the number of books to 25 million. This year, our current membership number has reached 7.6 million and the number of books to 25.6 million. With our 800,000 new books that are currently being distributed, we hope to increase this number to 26.4 million by the end of the year. With the new libraries that we will open in 2026, we will be able to accommodate more than 150,000 to 200,000 people. We expect a new one every day in our library services. Two years ago, we opened our Rami Library, which we described as a new circle, a new page in our great march. I guess you remember that. We turned this library into a center that lives and produces with its social facilities, workshops, culture and art activities. In our book clinic, which is the world's largest writing work restoration laboratory, we have identified 40,000 works this year and cleaned 28,000 works. We have restored 4,446 works that have been damaged. This is also very important. There will definitely be those who remember our guests here. One of the victims of the spiritless, rootless, historical consciousness of the 28th February period is the historical books at our Istanbul University. By the rector of the time, whose name is remembered by oppression and oppression, the library of rare works of the university and thousands of rare works were thrown into the garbage. Among them was the private library of Sultan Abdulhamid II. By submitting and cataloging, we presented these works to the readers. Despite all the accusations and slanders in Istanbul, we rebuilt the Atatürk Cultural Center in a much stronger way. In the coming months, we will open a magnificent library in Haydarpaşa. In recent years, we have revived the first snow airport and shopping center libraries of Turkey with 0.3 baby, agriculture, tourism and music libraries. In recent years, we opened our country's first hospital public library at the end of September. On the other hand, we have made a very serious contribution to the digitalization area. We presented the digital edition of 457,000 works in the collection of our Presidency of the Turkish Writing Works Foundation to our researchers. We also have a very good core in the compilation and cataloging activities. In 2024, we broke the historical record of the Republic by collecting 107,033 books. As of September 2025, we have achieved a new success with 154,000 cataloging activities. In our National Digital Library Project, we created the digital version of the services provided in the National Library. In addition to the localization in Ankara, our National Digital Library members can access more than 20 million resources in our 69 public libraries on all sides of our country. I would like to thank our ministries, institutions and libraries for their efforts in all these services. Dear friends, I would not like to bring it to the agenda in front of our distinguished guests like you. However, as politicians, we also need to protect the reputation of the political institution in the face of attacks. Yesterday, I followed the remarks of the President of the Main Opposition Party in the name of his own party and our country's politics. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether he is the President of Turkey's 2nd largest party or an insulting machine whose settings have been disrupted. Turkey never deserves such a political style, such an activity. On the other hand, we all know very well that when the mind is poor, the mind becomes illiterate. Look, I'm really sorry to say that there is a poor person who has completely broken the bond between his mind and his tongue and does not hear what comes out of his mouth. This person becomes aggressive with the lies he says day and night, with the slanders he throws at those in front of him, with the insults he swears at in the squares. As the corruption of the criminal organization that surrounds the local governments is revealed, this person panics, becomes ugly and loses control. Of course, we condemn our nation to these poisonous statements that infect politics in this language, which has become more and more leveled and unpleasant. Yesterday, both our Deputy Prime Minister and our party spokesman, as well as my other friends, gave the answer to this person without going down to his level. My advice to him, we said little, he is very lonely. With these thoughts, I wish that our conference will be a means of good for all of us once again. I thank all our guests who hosted our program. I congratulate our hardworking brothers with all my heart. Thank you, be well, stay healthy. We invite our Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mr. Mehmet Nur Ersoy, to the stage with your applause. We would like to share the content of our gift with both our President and our esteemed guests. This gift is presented to our President by the Hafizi Kütüplük Atama Berat, which was made by Sultan Abdulmecid to the Eyup El Ensari Foundation Library. We thank you very much. Dear guests, we have come to the end of our program. Our President, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who honored us with his participation in our program, offers his thanks. And we welcome our President with our respect and strong applause. We thank all the participants of the UNCOSTLINK 2025 International Conference, which is held in cooperation with the President's National Library. Thank you, be well, God bless you.