The National Library at Isa Cultural Centre (ICC) is the main and largest library in the Kingdom of Bahrain, containing variety of knowledge sources and advanced library services that meet the needs of researchers and readers of all segments of Bahraini society. The National Library contains more than 100,000 book title from various fields of Knowledge.
The library building consists of four floors. The ground floor includes the General Knowledge Hall and the Bahraini Publications Hall, while the first floor contains the Foreign Publications and Special Collections Hall, the References and Periodicals Hall, in addition to the library of His Highness Late Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalid Al Khalifa, while the second floor contains the E-library, Study rooms and Video-conferencing hall. The Children's Library is located in the basement of the building.
Each hall accommodates nearly 40,000 volumes, divided and distributed according to the "Dewey Decimal" classification system, and includes subjects: General knowledge, philosophy and psychology, religions, social sciences, languages, theoretical sciences, applied sciences, arts, literature, history, geography and translations.
The National Library also applies the Radio Frequency Identification Mechanism (RFID) to manage and protect its collections.
xObjectives of the National Library:
1. Encouraging reading and studying.
2. Collecting and preserving intellectual production, especially the national, in its various forms, printed and unprinted.
3. Collecting and preserving rare books and official publications in all their forms.
4. Issuing the national bibliography, which aims to preserve and introduce the intellectual and local production.
5. Providing scientific and intellectual sources for academic research writing.
Borrowing and Membership Registration Systems:
1. Issuing a membership card for citizens for a period of two years, for a fee of (BD 2/-).
2. For non-Bahrainis, a membership card is issued to for a period of two years, for a fee of (BD 2/-), with a security deposit of (BD 20/-).
3. Two books can be borrowed for a period not exceeding two weeks.
4. (BD -/50 Fils) per book will be fined for each day of delay.
Visting times:
Sunday-Thursday: 7:00am - 6:00pm
Friday and Saturday: closed
xasklibrarian@icc.gov.bh - 17366563 / 17366572