Libraries in Late Ottoman Palestine between the Orient and the Occident

The development of libraries in nineteenth-century Palestine was part of the cultural interface between the Orient and the Occident. Motivated primarily by religious considerations and by the aspiration to explore Palestine, the Christian minority developed libraries and library services in monasteries, churches and missions, in their educational and research institutions, and in consulates. The Jewish minority, motivated mainly by the ideology of modern Jewish nationalism, laid the foundations for a Jewish national library and developed public, school, and workers' libraries in all its settlements. In comparison with the Christian and Jewish communities, the contribution of the Muslim majority to library development in Palestine was insignificant. As a consequence of the cultural interface, research literature on Palestine was brought into the country, library collections became secularized, and German librarianship had a decisive long-term effect on library development in the country.