National Libraries: The Concept and the Practice,1700–2000

Abstract

The scope of national libraries has often been formulated within the framework of three core concepts: universal, nation-oriented or functional. Historically, the impulse was educational, as for the British Museum Library, heritage-oriented, as for the Paris Bibliothèque nationale, or bibliographic, as for the Leipzig Deutsche Bücherei (predecessor of the present Deutsche Bibliothek). In Italy, the national tradition had to find a compromise with local and regional identities and this explains, although it does not justify, the high number of national libraries. The concept of ‘national library’ emerged in different ways in the UK, France, Germany and Italy; there has been a ‘pendulum’ trend, with national library functions first cumulated in one single library and then decentralized in a network of libraries. Globalization, the advent and growth of electronic publications, the ‘convergence’ phenomenon and the need to protect small and less widely spread languages seem to be pushing the pendulum back towards concentration, giving again a leading role to national libraries, at least in strategic and planning terms.