The Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS with the most modern library system in the Combined Catalogs of National Library
The Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences with the most modern library system in the Combined Catalogs of National Library.
The Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences has implemented the most modern Alma system and has begun co-cataloging with the National Library — the central library of the state. Extensive cooperation within the nationwide library network, possible thanks to the implementation of uniform principles of cataloging collections, brings benefits both to library employees, who can manage collections more effectively, and to readers, who gain broader, faster and more transparent access to information.
The Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków has been officially operating since 1856, but its library resources, currently numbering about 750,000 volumes and inventory units (including 180,000 special collections), began to be collected long before that date. The wide exchange of publications, both foreign and domestic, has resulted in the collections containing scientific works from all fields of science, in many languages. The most valuable resources include graphic collections (over 100,000 items), manuscripts (almost 18,000 items), old prints (over 16,000 items), cartographic collections (over 12,000 items) and ephemeral prints (over 11,000 items).
As a result of the implementation of the system in subsequent libraries (including the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences), the area of joint work of the institutions participating in the project has been expanded, with the main goal of real-time co-cataloging in accordance with uniform cataloging regulations (using the National Library Descriptors). Thanks to the implementation of the new system, the resources of the katalogi.bn.org.pl search engine have been enriched, now bringing together the combined catalogues of, among others, the central state library, the Jagiellonian Library (together with the faculty and institute libraries of the Jagiellonian University), academic libraries, including those of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, University School of Physical Education in Kraków, Gdynia Maritime University, Fahrenheit University libraries (including the University of Gdańsk), provincial public libraries in Olsztyn, Lublin, Wrocław, Szczecin and Kielce, as well as municipal libraries in Elbląg, Gdynia and Wrocław. In total, the combined catalogues are co-created by 148 libraries that implemented the integrated resource management system in 2022–2024 as part of the National Reading Development Programme 2.0 or purchased it independently, joining the co-cataloging with the National Library. The resources of the Combined BN Catalogs currently number 56 million units. The connection of other large public and academic libraries to the system is in progress.
The National Library, as the operator of Priority 1. Intervention Direction 1.2. Building a nationwide library network through an integrated library resource management system as part of the multi-annual program ‘Narodowy Program Rozwoju Czytelnictwa 2.0 na lata 2021–2025’, covers the costs of maintaining the system.
We encourage you to discover the wealth of Polish literature available in the combined catalogs at https://katalogi.bn.org.pl.
Polish samizdats
The Scientific Library of the PAAS and the PAS in Cracow has a significant collection of Polish samizdat books and periodicals from 1970s and 1980s. Since 2006 we’ve been gradually cataloguing them. Currently, our catalogue lists 733 publications from this collection. Their descriptions are available in the online Catalogue.
19th century Polish books in the Bibliothèque Polonaise de Paris
Lucyna Pyrzowska’s grant from National Humanities Development Programme ‘Cataloguing 19th-c. Polish and Emigration publications from the collections of the Bibliothèque Polonaise de Paris and La Société Historique et Littéraire Polonaise’ was realised in the Polish Library in Paris. Grant’s results are available via the online Catalogue.
