NLRK’s rare book and manuscript collections include more than 25,000 titles in Kazakh, Russian, and other Eastern and European languages from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Among them are 400 manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Chagatai, Old Slavic, and Korean languages.

According to an agreement on the digitization of part of these collections that was recently signed with NLRK covering a period of three years, IBM and the Kus Zholy Foundation will mainly provide hard- and software and support a series of training for NLRK staff.

Representatives of Kus Zholy and NLRK recently visited the Library of Alexandria in Egypt to exchange experiences in digitization projects. Returning from Alexandria, NLRK Director Mukhtar Auezov said: "We were pleased to see the results of the support given to the library and the way librarians use the very expensive equipment. This is also an excellent example of the way how national authorities support the storage of the national and International written heritage".