MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WEB SITE
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METU Library was founded in 1957, and was first housed in an old building in Milli Müdafaa Street. Furuzan Olşen and Solmaz İzdemir, founders of the METU Library, were appointed as librarians on September 15, 1957. Natelle Isley, an expert from UNESCO, was appointed as the Library Director in 1958 with a biref to improve the Library. The Library's collection started growing thanks to donations of books from the British and USA governments. Donald Redmond, also an expert from UNESCO, replaced Natelle Isley as Library Director in July 1959. The first financial aid from the United Nations continued for 4 years. This aid, which amounted to $25,000 per year was extremely important for the improvement of the Library during the initial period after its establishment. The third director of the library D.R. Kalia, again an expert from UNESCO, worked until the end of 1961. On March 19, 1962, CENTO provided £1,564 to the Library for the purchase of books and journals. William W. Bennett, another expert from UNESCO, was appointed as Library Director on July 9, 1962. The Library developed rapidly into a real library. Mr. Paul Wasserman, Library Director at Cornell University, visited METU and prepared a report about the development of the Library, as a result of which $30,500 from the AID/ Cornell project was donated to the Library.Aid to the Library continued in those days. The German government donated a collection to the Library on July 9, 1963. The Library's collection reached 50,000 volunmes with the donation of 805 books and 605 journals from the American People to the People Programme, 220 books from the J.F.Kennedy Memorial Library in 1964, and 1,000 books from the British government in 1965. W.W. Bennett worked as Director of the Library until 1965. Behruz Çinici, architect of the METU Library building, visited the USA in April 1963 to study library buildings. In the same year Dr. A.F. Kuhlman came to Turkey and worked in METU for a month to contribute to the studies concerning the structure of the library building. The Library was moved to the Faculty of Architecture on the METU Campus on September 15, 1963.
The first part of the current library building construction began in 1966, and the collection was carried to the new building in 1967. The second part of the library building was completed in 1975. Furuzan Olşen was appointed as Library Director in 1967, and worked until the retirement in August 1981. Dr. Tekin Aybaş replaced Furuzan Olşen after her retirement and worked until 1988. Between 1988 and 1993, Filiz Çermen was the Library Director. Prof. Dr. Bülent Karasözen replaced her in 1993 and worked until 2007 as Library Director. Some of the most important acts during his management were the transition to the process of library automation, developing the e-book and e-journal collections, and the establishment of the Anatolian University Libraries Consortium, ANKOS. As of February 14, 2007, Cevat Güven was appointed as the Library Director. METU Library has one of the largest collections in Turkey with it's 382.040 books, 71.256 e-books, 170.270 bound periodicals, 1.258 journal subscriptions, 50.537 e-journal subscriptions, and 15.322 dissertations according to the indicators in 2008. The book collection is arranged according to the Library of Congress Classification System, in which subjects are arranged alphabetically.Collections are predominantly in English but also in Turkish. All printed materials are on open access in the reading halls except dissertations, TSE standards, bound periodicals belonging 1989 and before, and the stacks collection.