The National Library is home to valuable and rare collections of Tunisian periodicals dating back to the 19th century. They come in diverse languages (Arabic, French, Italian, Hebrew…), cover a wide range of topics (politics, literature, science, comedy, local news…), and have diverse intellectual and political affiliations.
The collection is comprised of 16,000 sets, including:
- Periodical sets starting from 1860 when Arraid At-Tunisi, the official gazette, was first published. The following are examples of this set:
- The full set of the Tunisian official gazette, the first official national newspaper started in 1860;
- An-Nuzha al-H̱ayriyya (1874)
- Al-Ḥāḍira(1888) ;
- Az-Zuhra (1890) ;
- Le Tunisien (Issue N1, 1907), the first newspaper ever issued by Tunisian nationalists, first published in French and then in Arabic (1909);
- La Dépêche tunisienne (1889).
- Revue tunisienne (1894).
The collection also includes distinctive periodical sets from Arab countries and elsewhere.