A national push to restore Lebanon's public libraries

Public libraries remain among the few institutions designed to belong to everyone. They are spaces for learning, culture, and civic connection. The Ministry of Culture has launched an extensive library rehabilitation initiative, backed by $650,000 in international funding and implemented in partnership with UNESCO. The project aims to restore, upgrade, and reimagine Lebanon's network of public libraries across the country.

The Beiruter spoke with the Ministry of Culture to better understand the initiative, its goals, and what it could mean for the future of public libraries in Lebanon.

A nationwide assessment

Rather than distributing limited funds evenly across all libraries regardless of need, the ministry took an evidence-based approach: it conducted a comprehensive survey of 57 public libraries outside Beirut, consulting with librarians, compiling detailed reports, and categorizing each library as thriving, struggling, or effectively closed.

The resulting picture was sobering. The ministry told The Beiruter that “libraries lacked basic equipment, adequate book collections, or the programming that might draw visitors through their doors.” Annual attendance at public libraries outside Beirut currently stands at around 125,000, a modest figure for a country of more than four million people. The ministry has set an ambitious target of doubling that number to 250,000 within two years.

Funding for the project comes from a coalition of international partners including UNESCO, the Norwegian Embassy in Lebanon, the Francophonie organization, the Chris "Loops" Seikali Foundation, and the MCN Build Foundation. Separately, the ministry has also secured a grant of more than $600,000 to digitize the collections of the National Library in Beirut.

More than books

The ministry is explicit that libraries can no longer survive as passive repositories of books. In an age of smartphones, social media, and relentless news cycles, libraries must compete for attention, and the ministry believes they can win that competition by becoming dynamic community centers.

"We are facing a crisis in reading," the ministry acknowledged. "Reading is in constant decline, which affects our children's ability to read, write, and understand developments in depth. Screens and breaking news cannot replace books."

The rehabilitation project accordingly includes plans to expand digital resources alongside physical collections, support cultural programming, and transform libraries into spaces for community activity. Several libraries are already leading the way: those in Amioun, Haret Hreik, Qaa, and Bikfaya have organized educational, environmental, and community-building programs that draw residents from across social divides.

Rebuilding what war destroyed

The initiative comes against a backdrop of destruction. At least seven public libraries in southern Lebanon were completely obliterated during Israeli military strikes, including those in Aitaroun, Majdal Selm, Habboush, and Bint Jbeil. Minister Ghassan Salameh spoke with particular emotion about the Bint Jbeil Public Library, which he helped establish 25 years ago and which had grown into a vibrant cultural hub before being reduced to rubble.

"We are facing the necessity of rebuilding from scratch," he said, acknowledging that immediate reconstruction may not be feasible and suggesting temporary prefabricated structures as a stopgap until more permanent solutions are possible.

The scale of the challenge is daunting. Lebanon's public libraries were already struggling before the war, and the country's broader economic collapse, which began in 2019 and wiped out the savings of much of the middle class, has left cultural institutions chronically underfunded. Rebuilding in the south is not merely a matter of construction; it requires restoring communities' faith that cultural infrastructure is worth investing in at all.

A long road ahead

Given the limited resources available, the ministry is taking a phased approach, starting with a small number of libraries across different regions and expanding gradually over time. It is a strategy born of necessity, but also of realism about what can be achieved in a country still navigating a slow-motion economic catastrophe.

The library project is an argument, perhaps a hopeful one, that Lebanon's public spaces can still belong to all of its citizens.