Koç University Suna Kıraç Library, a library which began as part of
Koç University (KU) in 1993. It was opened at the KU campus in İstinye before moving to the Rumelifeneri Campus together with the university’s other units in 2000. It is one of Istanbul’s best-equipped academic libraries.
The Suna Kıraç Library is based in a four-story building of 8,300 square meters in the center of the KU campus. It can seat 900 people and offers individual and group study areas, as well as six four-person group-study booths and 15 study rooms for those who wish to work in small groups. There is also a reading room containing all current subscription magazines and daily newspapers, as well as a seminar room used to host events for showing users how to get the best out of the library resources. During the academic term, the library is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The area called the “24 Hour Reading Room” is always open throughout the year, independent of the library’s inner spaces.
The library’s collections include a broad range of print and digital resources with over 250,000 books and 170,000 e-books, largely in English and Turkish. It subscribes to over 63,000 magazines, including online publications, and 120 digital databases in various subject areas. The library also houses writings and rare artifacts relating to Ottoman and European history, literature and religion. As well as the KU Health Sciences Library in Topkapı, other libraries that provide services in connection with the KU Suna Kıraç Library are: ANAMED library in Beyoğlu, Istanbul: AKMED library in Kaleiçi, Antalya; and the VEKAM library in Keçiören, Ankara.
The library digitizes different cultural objects and texts and makes them accessible online. Among those currently available are the Manuscripts Collection, the Josephine Powell Slides Collection, the Hatice Gonnet-Bağana Hittite Collection, The Soundscape of Istanbul, the Rahmi Koç Museum Echoes of Industrial Legacy and the VEKAM LoCloud Project.
The Suna Kıraç Library hosts annual gatherings of local and international library organizations and is a member of the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institution), IATUL (International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries), ALA (American Library Association), and LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche).