National Library of Poland

The Biblioteka Narodowa is Poland's legal-deposit national library, run under the Ministry of Culture. Its main site on Aleja Niepodleglosci in Warsaw's Mokotow district is a plain post-war block holding the working collection. The treasures sit elsewhere: medieval manuscripts, incunables and original Chopin autographs are kept in the rebuilt Krasinski Palace on the Old Town edge. Founded in 1928 during the young Second Polish Republic, the library lost most of its holdings in 1944, when German troops methodically burned the evacuated special collections after the Warsaw Uprising. Today anyone with a reader card can work in the halls, see exhibitions on Polish book history or wander the baroque Krasinski Garden beside the palace. Total holdings reach about ten million items.