Luxembourg

The National Library of Luxembourg

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The origins of the National Library of Luxemburg date back to the year 1798, when the then French government founded a school with a public library attached in the Département des Forêts – the Bibliothèque centrale du Département des Forêts.

The original book collections of this library are dominated by the residual stock of the Jesuit College, which was dissolved in 1773, and also comprise the library stocks of the monasteries, particularly Orval and Echternach, which were dissolved by French revolutionary troops in the years 1794 – 95.

The Bibliothèque de Luxembourg became the National Library in the year 1899. Today, the National Library of Luxemburg houses approximately 800 manuscripts dating from the 8th to the 20th century, 140 incunabula, 750,000 volumes printed after 1500, and about 6,500 journals published in Luxemburg and other countries.