View from Ljubljana Castle
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Country | Slovenia |
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Type | National library, academic library |
Established | 1774 |
Location | Ljubljana |
Collection | |
Size | 2,749,593 volumes |
Access and use | |
Members | 10,931 |
Other information | |
Budget | €7,479,522 (2014) |
Director | Martina Rozman Salobir |
Staff | 138,5 |
Website | www.nuk.uni-lj.si |
References: |
The National and University Library (Slovene: Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, NUK), established in 1774, is one of the most important national educational and cultural institutions of Slovenia. It is located in the centre of Ljubljana, between Auersperg Street (Turjaška ulica), Gentry Street (Gosposka ulica), and Vega Street (Vegova ulica), in a building designed by the architect Jože Plečnik in the years 1930–31 and constructed between 1936–41. The building is considered one of the greatest achievements by Plečnik. According to the Mandatory Publications Copy Act, issuers are bound to submit a copy of each publication they publish to the National and University Library. In 2011, the library kept about 1,307,000 books, 8,700 manuscripts, and numerous other text, visual and multimedia resources, and was (in 2010) subscribed to 7900 periodicals. Books and other resources are kept at storehouses at Auersperg Street (Turjaška ulica) and at Leskošek Street (Leskoškova cesta). There have been significant problems with a lack of space and a new modern building has been planned to be built in the vicinity.
Around 1774, after the dissolution of Jesuits, the Lyceum Library formed from the remains of the Jesuit Library and several monastery libraries. It was established with a decree issued by Maria Theresa. The submission of legal deposit copies to the Lyceum library became mandatory with a decree published by the Austrian court in 1807, at first only in Carniola, except for a short period of French administration, when it received copies from all the Illyrian provinces. In 1919, it was named State Reference Library and started to collect legal deposit copies from the entire Slovenia of the time. In the same year, the University of Ljubljana (the first Slovenian university) was established and the library served its needs too. In 1921, it started to acquire legal deposit copies from the entire Yugoslavia. It was named University Library in 1938.