TEHRAN - Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library has signed an agreement for mutual cooperation with 400 other libraries from across the globe. Marashi said, "With six thousand precious handwritten books in more than thirty thousand covers, the library is the largest in Iran, and third in the world of Islam."

He explained that thirty covers containing more than twelve thousand handwritten manuscripts have already been printed, and another sixty are also in the process of being published. He added that restoration and preservation of these handwritten books are among the most significant activities of the library -- transforming them into pictorial manuscripts, microscopic writings, and microfilms.

The library has so far recorded sixteen handwritten manuscripts on tape, film, and microfilm that are carefully stored in its archives as backup.