Persianate bookmaking activities in general, and deluxe manuscript productionin particular, long have been associated with the kitab-khana, which literallymeans "book house," and which is translated most commonly as "library." Nowadays library universally refersto a place where books are gathered, stored, and preserved, and this certainly has been the primarymeaning of kitab-khana for the past millennium. Implicit in this definition is the notion of kitab-khana as "collection," that is, someone's private collection of books. From at least the fifteenth century, however, the term kitab-khana was also used to signify a place for or at which books were made; thus, it is variously defined by modern scholars of Islamic art as a scriptorium, atelier,studio,or workshop.

"The Making of Manuscripts and the Workings of the Kitab-khana in Safavid Iran"