The National Library of Turkey Sells 147 Tons of Mostly Antiquarian Books to a "Junk Company"

On December 11, 2013 the following message was forwarded to the exlibris-l newsgroup, to which I subscribe:

Date: December 9, 2013 at 2:03:35 PM EST
To: MELANET <[email protected]<mailto:melanet-l@googlegroups.com>>Subject: [MELANET-L] Turkish National Library sold books to a junk company

Dear Mela-netters,

For those of you fluent in Turkish, hereunder an article concerning the latest scandal at the Turkish National Library.

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/kultur-sanat/25310113.asp

The library sold 147 tons of books to a junk company at a price of 7 to 25 cents a kg. Most of them were antiquarian titles and serial in Armenian, Greek and Karamanlica (Turkish using Greek alphabet). The reason is that the TNL does not have staff who can read Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Judeospanish or Assyrian.

---
Rifat Bali
LIBRA
Istanbul