For a number of years now individuals and Bahá'í institutions have been writing to the Library requesting assistance for local and national libraries that they are attempting to establish. We have tried to provide some assistance by sending copies of A Classification for the Bahá'í Faith which was published in Haifa in 1988 and a description of the arrangement of the materials in the Library, but apart from that we are not able to assist due to resource limitations.

It is our hope that this Web site will provide a partial solution which will deal with the day-to-day business of Bahá'í libraries. It contains a general description of the Library and some of its special collections, a descriptive tutorial about how to use the classification and the classification schedule itself. A separate listing of Bahá'í Subject Headings developed by the Library is also included as well as the "Want lists" (European languages and Persian/Arabic languages) which are distributed to non-Bahá'í antiquarian book dealers and interested individuals. There are links to other related pages, such as Scriptum : newsletter for Bahá'í librarians and information professionals and the FTP server. There are selected cataloguing records provided. These are mostly for those seeking verification of cataloguing and/or classification questions.

More and more communities are turning their thoughts towards establishing Bahá'í libraries. As the published record grows longer, more people are not able to purchase all titles now appearing in print for their own libraries and a community library seems to be an answer for this. In addition, there are more Bahá'í schools, and other institutes which could benefit from having access to this type of information.

Future developments will include interaction with the on-line catalogs.