Austrian National Library

The library’s origins reach back to the medieval Habsburg collections, but it was formally established in 1623 when Emperor Ferdinand II acquired the library of the humanist scholar Johannes Sambucus. The present main building, the Prunksaal (State Hall), was constructed between 1723 and 1726 under Emperor Charles VI, designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and completed by his son Joseph Emanuel. The hall is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture, measuring about 77 meters long and featuring a magnificent fresco by Daniel Gran that depicts the apotheosis of Charles VI. After the fall of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918, the library was renamed from the Imperial Court Library to the Austrian National Library, and it became a public institution of the Republic of Austria.

The library’s collections are exceptionally diverse. Its papyrus collection, with roughly 200,000 items, is the largest in the world and includes texts in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Arabic, some dating back to the 15th century BC. The library also holds the largest collection of globes (about 480), including rare celestial and terrestrial globes from the 16th to 19th centuries. Its music collection contains autographs of composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, and the literature archive holds manuscripts of notable Austrian writers. The library is also a major repository of incunabula, with about 8,000 copies, and it maintains a significant collection of maps, portraits, and posters.

Since the late 20th century, the Austrian National Library has embraced digital preservation and access. Its digital library (ANNO – AustriaN Newspapers Online) provides free access to millions of digitized pages of historical Austrian newspapers and journals. The library also operates the Austrian Literature Online (ALO) project, which digitizes literary and scientific texts. As the national library, it serves as the legal deposit library for all publications issued in Austria, and it coordinates the Austrian national bibliography. It is also a center for research, with departments for papyri, music, and cartography, and it hosts numerous exhibitions in its historic rooms.

Beyond its famous collections, the library holds several surprising treasures. Its Esperanto museum, founded in 1927, is one of the largest of its kind, with a library and archives dedicated to the constructed language. The library also houses a collection of over 1,000 bookbindings from the 15th to 20th centuries, and its collection of literary remains includes the estate of the poet Georg Trakl. A little-known fact is that the library’s papyrus collection was largely acquired in the late 19th century by the Austrian archaeologist Theodor Graf, and it includes the so-called “Artemidorus Papyrus,” which contains a map of Spain and is a subject of scholarly debate. The library’s reading rooms are open to the public, and the Prunksaal is a popular tourist attraction, but few visitors know that the library also operates a museum of globes and a museum of papyrus, both located in the Hofburg.

Prunksaal

The grand Baroque state hall of the Austrian National Library, built in the 18th century.

Incunabula

Books printed before 1501, i.e., in the infancy of printing.

Legal deposit

A legal requirement that publishers submit copies of their publications to a national library.