During the late 19th century, Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, was an important centre for collecting information on neighbouring Muslim countries. This tradition was maintained under the Soviet administration, with the result that today libraries in Baku and Azerbaijan boast an extensive and unique collection of books, manuscripts, newspapers and other serials from the Persian- and Turkic-speaking areas of the Caucasus and Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Ottoman Empire and the Arab world.
The newspapers and serials held in these collections - largely in Ottoman, Azeri, Arabic, Persian, Uzbek and Urdu - include rare materials which until now have remained unknown to the majority of scholars working in the field of modern Middle Eastern history. This comprehensive catalogue provides information on newspapers in 16 languages and published between the 1870s and the early 1990s. It is a unique research tool for all specialists in the field.