{"id":24043,"date":"2026-01-08T15:31:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.mnk.pl\/biblioteka\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T14:16:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T14:16:33","slug":"library","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/new.mnk.pl\/en\/activity\/library\/","title":{"rendered":"Library"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Contact <\/h2>\n
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(+48 12) 43-35-525<\/p>\n

\n al. 3 Maja 1, 30-062 Krak\u00f3w<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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biblioteka@mnk.pl<\/a><\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n

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Head: Sabina Serafin<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Opening hours<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Monday<\/td>9 a.m. – 3 p.m.<\/td><\/tr>
Tuesday<\/td>9 a.m. – 3 p.m.<\/td><\/tr>
Wednesday<\/td>9 a.m. – 3 p.m.<\/td><\/tr>
Thursday<\/td>9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (orders from the library magazine until 3 p.m.)<\/td><\/tr>
Friday<\/td>9 a.m. – 3 p.m.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Catalogue of the National Museum Library in Krak\u00f3w<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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History and Collection<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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The Library of the National Museum in Krakow holds more than 141,600 volumes \u2013 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\u2019s publishing work and exhibitions. Use of the library is facilitated by an online catalogue on the museum\u2019s website which contains information on over 60% of the library\u2019s holdings \u2013 books, periodicals, electronic documents and music. The library\u2019s 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), Ma\u0142opolska Biblioteka Cyfrowa (Ma\u0142opolska Digital Library, a regional platform) and the international Europeana. Specialist internet databases are also being created: \u201cBibliografia zawarto\u015bci prac zbiorowych w Bibliotece MNK (od 1980 r.)\u201d [Bibliography of the contents of collective works in the NMK Library (since 1980)], \u201cPublikacje pracownik\u00f3w MNK \u201d [Publications by NMK employees] and \u201cBibliografia publikacji o historykach sztuki, muzealnikach i kolekcjonerach\u201d [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 K\u00fcnstlerlexikon, the fullest and most up-to-date biographical dictionary of artists and digital library Jstor. Also accessible in the reading room are the library\u2019s 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 \u201cpublications devoted to historical monuments in the Polish lands\u201d and manuals of use to museum professionals \u201cin assessing works\u201d, and set aside funds for acquisitions every year. The concise but accurate profile of the library\u2019s 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\u2019s collections, from specialist bibliographies, encyclopedias and lexicons, through manuals and syntheses of the history of art, militaria, numismatics, the conservator\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest and most significant donation was made by Feliks Jasie\u0144ski 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 \u2013 including a major collection of foreign journals \u2013 once belonged to prominent collectors and experts in the history of coins and medals: Emeryk Hutten Czapski, Antoni Ryszard, W\u0142adys\u0142aw Bartynowski, Marian Gumowski and Lech Kokoci\u0144ski.

Other elements important for the institution include book collections bequeathed by some artists: Stanis\u0142aw Wyspia\u0144ski (containing historical works and source publications which constituted inspiration or database for the literary and artistic work of the playwright), Olga Bozna\u0144ska (with exhibition catalogues and contemporary literary works dedicated to the painter), J\u00f3zef Czapski (featuring publications referring to the artist’s extensive interests \u2013 art, literature, philosophy, history and politics; rich in notes \u2013 evidence of thorough reading)2 and J\u00f3zef Mehoffer (with catalogues of the artist’s exhibitions)3. The collection is complemented by exhibition catalogues of Krakow artists \u2013 Janina Kraupe-\u015awiderska, Julian Jo\u0144czyk and Lucjan Mianowski. Another important group of books was contributed by former employees of the Museum: W\u0142adys\u0142aw Janiszewski, Kazimierz Buczkowski, Helena Blum, Maria Gutkowska-Rychlewska and Zdzis\u0142aw \u017bygulski 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 Koc\u00f3jowa \u2013 on E. Hutten Czapski’s collection, Anna Gruca \u2013 on Wyspia\u0144ski’s library, and Jolanta Sopi\u0144ska \u2013 on J\u00f3zef Czapski’s books in Polish. Stanis\u0142aw Wyspia\u0144ski’s book collection was also presented at the “Wyspia\u0144ski. Unknown” exhibition and described in the accompanying catalog.


1. Numerical data at the end of 2018.
2. Part of J\u00f3zef Czapski\u2019s 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 J\u00f3zef as well as Zbigniew and Ryszard Mehoffer is on loan at The J\u00f3zef Mehoffer House.

Text by Halina Marcinkowska<\/strong> \u2013 Library of the National Museum in Krakow<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Online databases<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Readers may seek information on the library\u2019s collections via the online catalogue and the tradition card files.

Online databases:<\/strong>

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