Library

The Library of the National Museum in Krakow holds more than 141,600 volumes – over 120,000 books and 21,600 periodicals.1 Its collections are augmented by acquisitions, donations and exchanges with nearly 200, chiefly European museums, libraries, art schools and associations. This ensures that the library holds a representative body of exhibition and collection catalogues from other museums, in particular Polish institutions.

Its primary role is to aid NMK employees in their academic research on the artefacts. The reading room is also accessible to staff of other museums, scholars, students, exhibition curators and MNK museum guides, as well as anyone else with an interest in art and the collections of the NMK. It has an extensive reference section with books including seminal dictionaries, lexicons and general and specialist encyclopedias, rolls of arms, biographical and linguistic dictionaries, bibliographies, art history manuals, and museum information publications. It also holds the statutes, exhibition and collection catalogues, and periodicals that document the museum’s publishing work and exhibitions. Use of the library is facilitated by an online catalogue on the museum’s website which contains information on over 60% of the library’s holdings – books, periodicals, electronic documents and music. The library’s publications on the history of the museum are digitalized and are accessible in the digital libraries: Biblioteka Cyfrowa Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie (National Museum of Krakow Digital Library), Małopolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa (Małopolska Digital Library, a regional platform) and the international Europeana. Specialist internet databases are also being created: “Bibliografia zawartości prac zbiorowych w Bibliotece MNK (od 1980 r.)” [Bibliography of the contents of collective works in the NMK Library (since 1980)], “Publikacje pracowników MNK ” [Publications by NMK employees] and “Bibliografia publikacji o historykach sztuki, muzealnikach i kolekcjonerach” [Bibliography of publications on art historians, museum professionals and collectors]. There is a workstation in the reading room that offers access to licensed external databases, including artprice.com, which lists current prices on the global art market, Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon, the fullest and most up-to-date biographical dictionary of artists and digital library Jstor. Also accessible in the reading room are the library’s card catalogues: an alphabetical file of books and periodicals, the catalogue of the reference collection, a systematic file (compiled according to the Universal Decimal Classification), and a topographical file (of collections and exhibitions). The latter two files were closed in 1993 when the construction of the computer databases was begun.

The NMK Library in its present form has been in existence since the 1950s, though as an institution it was founded in the 1880s; it was at this time that the Museum Board deemed it necessary to start gathering “publications devoted to historical monuments in the Polish lands” and manuals of use to museum professionals “in assessing works”, and set aside funds for acquisitions every year. The concise but accurate profile of the library’s collection formulated at that time remains virtually unaltered to this day: Polish and foreign books and periodicals whose subjects are fields represented in the museum’s collections, from specialist bibliographies, encyclopedias and lexicons, through manuals and syntheses of the history of art, militaria, numismatics, the conservator’s art, and museum work, to discussion of detailed issues. There is also an extensive body of periodicals, many of them rare, from all the above fields. In chronological terms it comprises works published since 1800, which are termed modern printed works, as opposed to early printed works.

The thematic range of the present library collections has been shaped by the private libraries or parts of such collections donated to, or more rarely purchased by the museum from the nineteenth century onwards. Although the character of each one was marked by the diverse, sometimes wide-ranging interests of their original owners, they may be divided into a small number of thematic groups.

The largest and most significant donation was made by Feliks Jasieński and partly included works related to the history of culture, arts and crafts of the Far Eastern countries. It features biographies and elaborate albums devoted to Japanese artists, as well as catalogues of the most renowned European collections of Japanese and Chinese arts and crafts, published in the first quarter of the 20th century. The collection is complemented by books donated by Edward Goldstein. On the other hand, the unique numismatic publications – including a major collection of foreign journals – once belonged to prominent collectors and experts in the history of coins and medals: Emeryk Hutten Czapski, Antoni Ryszard, Władysław Bartynowski, Marian Gumowski and Lech Kokociński.

Other elements important for the institution include book collections bequeathed by some artists: Stanisław Wyspiański (containing historical works and source publications which constituted inspiration or database for the literary and artistic work of the playwright), Olga Boznańska (with exhibition catalogues and contemporary literary works dedicated to the painter), Józef Czapski (featuring publications referring to the artist’s extensive interests – art, literature, philosophy, history and politics; rich in notes – evidence of thorough reading)2 and Józef Mehoffer (with catalogues of the artist’s exhibitions)3. The collection is complemented by exhibition catalogues of Krakow artists – Janina Kraupe-Świderska, Julian Jończyk and Lucjan Mianowski. Another important group of books was contributed by former employees of the Museum: Władysław Janiszewski, Kazimierz Buczkowski, Helena Blum, Maria Gutkowska-Rychlewska and Zdzisław Żygulski junior, and included publications acquired with a view to carry out research into selected works from the museum collections.

The historical collections belonging to the Library, or their elements, have been analysed in papers by Maria Kocójowa – on E. Hutten Czapski’s collection, Anna Gruca – on Wyspiański’s library, and Jolanta Sopińska – on Józef Czapski’s books in Polish. Stanisław Wyspiański’s book collection was also presented at the “Wyspiański. Unknown” exhibition and described in the accompanying catalog.


1. Numerical data at the end of 2018.
2. Part of Józef Czapski’s book collection is on loan at The Czapski Pavilion in reconstructed room of the painter from the house of the Literary Institute in Maison-Laffitte.
3. The library of Józef as well as Zbigniew and Ryszard Mehoffer is on loan at The Józef Mehoffer House.

Text by Halina Marcinkowska – Library of the National Museum in Krakow

Readers may seek information on the library’s collections via the online catalogue and the tradition card files.

Online databases:

– The NMK Library online catalogue: the umbrella database for books, electronic documents, printed music and audio materials (post-1992 acquisitions plus recatalogued older holdings) :

• Articles from collective publications, above all materials from sessions of the Association of Art Historians (Stowarzyszenie Historyków Sztuki);
• Biographies and bibliographies of art historians, museum professionals, etc.;
• Bibliography of works by employees of the National Museum in Krakow.

Acquisitions from before 1992 are profiled in the following card catalogues:

• alphabetical – joint for books (up to 2006) and periodicals (ongoing)
• systematic for books (according to the Universal Decimal Classification)
• topographical for exhibitions, collections and auctions.

We recommend:

Online catalogues of Polish libraries

• KARO – Dispersed Catalogue of Polish Libraries
• NUKAT – Central Catalogue of Polish Academic Libraries

Online catalogues of foreign libraries:

• The European Library
• Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog KVK (worldwide libraries)
• Art Discovery Group Catalogue

The collections of the MNK Library are accessible in the reading room by all interested parties.

Readers must leave coats, briefcases, rucksacks, and bags over 15×20 cm in size in the cloakroom.

Use of the reading room is permitted on entry of the reader in the “Register of Readers” on their first visit to the reading room by the duty librarian, subject to presentation of ID and completion of a form by the reader.

Books may be lent to:

MNK employees after three months’ employment if on starting work at the MNK they showed their new employee briefing checklist;
other institutions under the terms of inter-library loans.

Access to collections in the reading room:

If a book is taken from a shelf in the reading room, a marker must be inserted in its place. After using the book, the reader must return it to the duty librarian.
If a reader requires a book from the stacks, a request slip must be filled in. Requests are processed as they are submitted.
Volumes left unused in the reading room for over a week are returned to the stacks.
In addition to books from the MNK’s own collections, employees may also use inter-library loans in the reading room.
Books brought into and taken out of the reading room must be shown to the duty librarian.
Items from the library’s collections must be handled with care.
Quiet must be observed in the reading room.
Eating and drinking are not permitted in the reading room.

Inter-library loans

The MNK library can borrow volumes from other libraries in Poland and abroad for the needs of museum employees.
Works not held in any Krakow libraries may be borrowed from other Polish libraries, and works not held in any Polish libraries may be borrowed from libraries abroad.
The MNK library loans volumes from its collections to other libraries in Poland and abroad for periods of 2-4 weeks on the basis of request slips stamped and signed by the head librarian of the borrowing library.
In place of an original, the MNK may make a photocopy of a work at the cost of the borrowing institution.

The digital collection of the Library of the National Museum in Krakow

Since 2008 we have been working with the Małopolska Digital Library and later with the National Museum of Krakow Digital Library to release the most precious and sought-after works from the NMK Library’s collections online. First to be digitalized were pre-war collections of National Museum publications: guides, catalogues to the collections and exhibitions, and the periodicals Sprawozdanie Zarządu Muzeum Narodowego and Sprawozdanie Dyrekcyi Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie.

We have also released several items of Cracoviana online: some volumes of Biblioteka Krakowska, some nineteenth-century guides to Krakow and the region, and other materials on the history of Krakow and Małopolska, including periodicals published here. We have also begun the process of digitalizing works from the collections of Stanisław Wyspiański, Leon Płoszewski (first editions of Wyspiański’s works) and Feliks Jasieński (Japonica). Recently, we have published catalogues of the Zachęta Fine Arts Society (Towarzystwo Zachęty Sztuk Pięknych) in Warsaw and the Society of Friends of Fine Arts (Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Sztuk Pięknych) in Krakow.

The digitalized collections of the NMK Library are easy to view and search via the NMK Library digital collection in the Małopolska Digital Library and the National Museum of Krakow Digital Library.

They may also be accessed via the bibliographical description on our online catalogue.

We also encourage use of other digital library holdings via the websites of the Federation of Digital Libraries and the Europeana.

Dear Readers,

We encourage you to make use of the bookmark “Nowości” in our online catalogue, which enables registered readers to order directly works that interest them.

The Library of the National Museum in Krakow has amassed more than 20,200 volumes of specialist periodicals, both antique and contemporary items. An up-to-date list of the contemporary periodical titles available is appended hereto. More information about our holdings is available in the alphabetical card catalogue, as well as by phone or e-mail.

We also encourage use of our electronic table of contents of the periodical Przegląd Artystyczny for the years 1946-1973. This journal, an important source for study of post-war Polish art, is accessible in the MNK Library reading room (call no. Czas. III 696, Czas. III 841). Its successor was Sztuka, which came out in the years 1974-2006 (call no. Czas. III 854).