Biblioteka Narodowa

The National Library was established under the Decree of the President of the Republic of Poland of February 24, 1928.

The National Library continues the tradition of the Załuski Library of the Commonwealth, set up in Warsaw by the Załuski brothers, Józef Andrzej and Andrzej Stanisław, both of whom were bishops. That Library opened to the public in 1747. It was one of the first libraries in the world intended to fulfill the tasks of a modern library in developing collections covering the entire body of Polish literature and making those works accessible to the public. In 1780 the Polish Parliament [the Sejm] granted the Library the right to receive a free legal deposit copy of every book printed in the country.

After Warsaw was invaded by Russian troops in 1794, the collections of the library were taken as war booty to St. Petersburg where they formed the core of the newly founded Imperial Library. The collections taken to Russia numbered 394,150 volumes, including about 11,000 manuscripts and over 24,500 etchings. After Poland was partitioned in three, the idea of the national library was cultivated by other book repositories, and primarily by foundation libraries of Polish aristocratic families who – beside national literature – also made efforts to collect and protect other memorabilia of national heritage. Many treasures of national literature held in foundation libraries were later incorporated in the National Library’s collections, the building of which began immediately after Poland regained independence in 1918.

The reconstituted holdings of the National Library included the collections of the Załuski Library previously taken to Russia and restituted from the Soviet Union over the period of 1923–1935, as well as the collections of other Warsaw-based libraries and the collections from Rapperswil and Paris created by Polish émigré communities and transferred to Poland.

During World War II the most valuable part of the National Library’s holdings – almost 800,000 registered items – was lost forever. The Library’s special collection was almost completely destroyed, including ca. 50,000 manuscripts, 2,500 incunabula, 80,000 early printed books, and 100,000 drawings and engravings. The few most precious treasures evacuated to Canada survived the ravages of war: this included the earliest manuscript records in the Polish language: the mid 14th century Kazania świętokrzyskie [The Holy Cross Sermons] and the late 14th century Psałterz floriański [Psalterium trilingue – The Sankt Florian Psalter].

The National Library acts as the central library of the state and one of the most important cultural institutions in Poland. Its mission is to protect national heritage preserved in the form of handwritten, printed, electronic, recorded sound and audiovisual documents. The primary task of the National Library is to acquire, store and permanently archive the intellectual output of Poles, whether the works of citizens living on Polish soil, the most important foreign works, or publications related to Poland and published abroad.

Following this fundamental function, the National Library is also responsible for a number of tasks that are of crucial importance to Polish culture. Serving as the chief archive of Polish literary output, the National Library is also a national bibliographic agency, a large research library focusing on the humanities, as well as a nationally and internationally recognized centre of preservation and conservation. It also fulfills a surpassing role in research, documentation and methodological activity in bibliography, library science and reading, and related areas connected with the social circulation of the book.

Under the Act of November 7, 1996 on Legal Deposit Copies, the National Library receives two copies of books and serials and other publications: newspapers, printed music, atlases, maps, ephemera, electronic publications, recorded sound and audiovisual documents. The Library receives 180,000 published items of various types yearly, including ca. 90 percent on legal deposit. The library also expands its collections by purchase, by gift and by exchange with other domestic and foreign libraries. The National Library holdings as of the end of 2012 (including duplicates) totalled over 9.455.611 registered items.

online catalog: http://alpha.bn.org.pl/screens/mainmenu.html