THEMEN Ausland
· Teaching librarianship at the teacher training institutes started in
1966.
· Most important is the establishment of the Jordanian Library As-
sociation in 1963.
· More fellowships were offered particularly from UNESCO.
· Amman Municipal Public Library was established in 1960.
Progress in establishing libraries in Jordan continued both quantitatively and
qualititatively as demonstrated in the following figures by the end of the twen-
tieth century:
· National Library 1
· Public Libraries 110
· University Libraries 20 -- there are 7 public
and 13 private universities
· Community College Libraries 50
· School Libraries 1200
· Children Libraries 35
· Special Libraries 104
· Libraries of Foreign Cultural Centres 7
This brings the total number to 1527 libraries having 5 million items, the major-
ity of which are books and 16 thousand journal titles. lt has to be noted here
that some libraries expanded through establishing branch libraries. The major
example for this is the Greater Amman Public Libraries, which has 30 branch
libraries for children and adults.
Nevertheless, we cannot weight all libraries by the same value, as some of
them are too small to be compared to others of the same type.
Library Concepts in Jordan
Needless to say that the library concepts in Jordan are similar to those prevail-
ing in any developed country. But limited resources do hinder the advance-
ment of libraries in Jordan to match the required international standards. The
major concepts that will be discussed here are:
1. Professionalization
2. Library Legislation
3. Computerization
4. Library Education
834 BIBLIOTHEKSDIENST 35. Jg. (2001), H. 7/8
