TEHRAN -- The president of the Iran National Library and Archives (INLA) announced on Tuesday that Iran’s per capita book reading is two minutes in every 24 hours.

At a conference organized by the Islamic Ideology Dissemination Organization (IIDO) in Mashhad, Ali-Akbar Ash’ari noted that if students reading their schoolbooks are taken into consideration, book reading increases to six minutes per day.
It is unfortunate that the national literacy rate is only 85 percent, he lamented.
Ash’ari said that Iran has more libraries and publishes more books than most countries, adding, “Iran has over 2000 public libraries and publishes at least 3000 copies of each book published.”
However, Iran’s libraries have no proper reading spaces and are not stocked up on the latest publications, which are major problems, he stated.
The Iran National Library and Archives is currently home to over 2 million books, 4 million periodicals, 300 million documents, and about 56,000 manuscripts, Ash’ari said, adding that INLA has signed agreements with 400 other national libraries.