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History


Jordan, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy in southwest Asia, lies between Syria on the north, Iraq on the east, Saudi Arabia on the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba on the south, and Israel on the west. Population (1990 est.) 4,010,000; area 97,740 sq.km. The official language is Arabic.


Jordan was established under a British mandate after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The Emirate of Trans-Jordan, consisting of the East Bank of the River Jordan, was proclaimed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan after gaining independence in 1946. It included the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. information given here relates to the East Bank only.


Until the 1950s libraries in Jordan were no more than small collections of books in some 15 school libraries. The first of these was established at al-Salt secondary school, then the only secondary school in the country, in 1926. The modern library movement started during the late 1950s, after a Unesco mission visited the country in 1955. Three major events followed in the 1960s: Amman Public Library (APL) was founded in 1960, the University of Jordan in 1962, and the Jordan Library Association ULA) in December 1963.

Sources:

Abdul-Reheim, Olfat. "Jordan", World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services, 3rd. ed. American Library Association, Chicago, (1993) 418-419.
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