National Museum of Slovenia Library

The National Museum of Slovenia Library possesses a rich collection of old materials dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Its collection may be divided into two sections: the first supports the basic disciplines of museology, conservation, numismatics, archaeology, applied arts, art history and history, while the second section is historical and comprises rare issues that are important for the history of Slovenia, for instance, books of the Slovene Protestants, books on Ljubljana’s first printer Janž Mandelc (16th century) and the complete works of Valvasor (17th century). The collection of school reports includes not only the izvestja ('reports') of the classical grammar school known as Ljubljana Lyceum and the Jesuit schools, but also reports from elementary and secondary schools from Slovenia and neighbouring countries, the oldest of which dates from the 18th century. Doctoral theses from the 18th and 19th century are also collected here. Cultural life can be researched with the assistance of minor printed items, for example invitations to concerts or religious services, or reports of societies. Among its old newspapers the most important series are those of Novice, Edinost, Zgodnja Danica, Slovenec, Slovenski narod, Jutro, Laibacher Zeitung, and Telegraph officiel. The manuscript holdings include the collections of France Prešeren, Žiga Zois, and Valentin Vodnik. The museum has also purchased collections of Anastasius Gruen and Rajko Ložar. Since 1994 the collection has been researchable through COBISS - Slovene Virtual Library.

The library has undertaken exchanges with 400 museum and university institutions round the world and has participated in several international museum exhibition projects, including Bayern und Slowenien im Zeitalter des Barock (‘Bavaria and Slovenia during the Baroque Period’, 2004), an international collaborative project involving the Institute for Art History, the University in Munich and the Department of Art History, University of Ljubljana, and Theatrum vitae et mortis humanae (2000), an exhibition on Žiga Herberstein. In future it plans to participate in the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) project. In 2002 the Head of the library took part in the Natural History Museum of London seminar ‘Sharing our Skill, Care and Display of Books, Manuscripts and Drawings’. The library collaborates regularly with the Vienna Austrian Institute for South Eastern Europe and with the British Library. A number of its staff have been trained at the Natural History Museum in London.

National Museum of Slovenia Library

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