National and University Library in Zagreb

The National and University Library in Zagreb is the central and one of the oldest Croatian cultural institutions. Its mission is to collect, protect and promote Croatian culture and science and serve as major research library of the University of Zagreb.

From its establishment in the 17th century the Library has been continuously and systematically collecting, cataloguing, protecting, preserving and making available the richness of its collection, primarily Croatian cultural heritage in different formats and media. The national collection includes everything created by the Croats, written in Croatian, published in Croatia, pertaining to Croatia or the Croats, and it is the first priority of the collection policy. The Library has also been collecting, cataloguing, making available and preserving the most important international works from different areas of creativity, science, arts and crafts, i.e. the works that have shaped civilisation and culture.

Brief History

The beginnings of the Library are connected to the foundation of the library within the Jesuit gymnasium in 1607. The national significance was bestowed upon the Library by the regulations regarding the legal deposit copy (in 1816 and 1837). From the 19th century the Library has been fulfilling its dual function: national and educational/academic. Both functions have been developing side by side to the present day.

From 1913 to 1995 the Library was situated in one of the most beautiful art nouveau buildings in Zagreb, the first building that was designed and built exclusively for the needs of the library. However, the store rooms were originally designed for 500,000 books and already in the sixties they were too small and inadequate. The new, modern and multimedia equipped library, designed for the 21st century was opened in 1995.

Functions and collections

The National and University Library in Zagreb conducts relevant activities and provides information services of the national library of the Republic of Croatia and the central library of the University of Zagreb, as well as scientific, research and development activities with the aim to support, organise and develop the library system of the Republic of Croatia.

The Library is open to different user categories (students, researchers, general public) and caters for their different needs. The Library currently holds over 3,000,000 items of books, periodicals, newspapers and other library materials; it maintains the web archive of Croatian e-resources and develops collections of digitised materials.

In addition to the general collection the Library houses several extremely valuable special collections: Collection of manuscripts and old and rare books Maps and atlases collection Music collection Prints and drawings collection