History of the school library in Kuwait 401 Library Review Vol. 59 No. 6, 2010 pp. 401-413 # Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0024-2535 DOI 10.1108/00242531011053922 Received 14 December 2009 Reviewed 10 January 2010 Revised 15 February 2010 Accepted 4 March 2010 Hidden parts in the history of the school library in Kuwait Hasan Buabbas and Benachir Medjdoub Research Institute for the Built and Human Environment, University of Salford, Salford, UK, and Yacine Rezgui School of Engineering, University of Cardiff, Cardiff, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a clearer picture of the first establishment of school libraries in Kuwait. In addition, the paper explores the development of the school library between 1911 and 1962. Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a qualitative research strategy. The interviews and documentation techniques have been utilized to gather data about the subject. Findings – The findings traced the first appearance of the school library in Kuwait back to 1944. It showed that the development of the library encountered major difficulties. Originality/value – The unique study reveals a branch of Kuwaiti education history hitherto concealed from its people, where the recognition of other disciplines in the field and the need for further study emerges. Keywords School libraries, Kuwait, Educational history Paper type Research paper Introduction It has not yet been possible to fix a date for the establishment of the school library in Kuwaiti education history. Nor is it easy to precisely date the development of the school library phenomenon. However, tenuous evidence suggests that the school library in the Kuwaiti establishment goes back to late 1911 (Al-Tammar and Badawi, 1994; Hussein, 2002; Zehery, 1994). To trace and argue this ‘‘fact’’ historically, it is necessary to conduct a qualitative investigation to study the legitimate history of the school library in Kuwait (Wertheimer, 2005). The school library has been developing over the last few decades, due to education authorities becoming aware of the importance of information resources on the education process. The trend towards establishing school libraries to sustain the teaching and learning process began chiefly in the mid-sixteenth century in the developed world (Barker, 2006). Regrettably, there is little documentation of school libraries’ history, indeed all library history. Black (1996) revealed that the study of library history by professional historians was scarce. Wertheimer (2005) argued that a critical decrease in the number of librarianship history studies has been evident since the early 1970s. Davis (1977, quoted in Black, 1996) stressed that: Since library history is part of the larger concern of social and cultural history, it is unfortunate that historians frequently fail to touch upon libraries, collections, reading habits or literacy at all. If they do the treatment tends to be marginal. Library historians, as well as cultural historians, need to call these omissions to the attention of one another and thereby attempt to correct a deficiency which impoverishes both (p. 18). Similarly, a great majority of Kuwaiti history books and research have ignored library history, especially the period between 1911 and 1962. The failure to cover this period needs to be challenged. The uniqueness of the topic encouraged the researchers to The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0024-2535.htm