The National Library of Poland is an archive of Polish documentary products. The institution permanently preserves Polish past and present intellectual products such as documents, charts and engravings, cartography, music, audiovisual and electronic collections.

The National Library of Poland ( Biblioteka Narodowa = The National Library) is closely related to Andrei Stanislav Zavusky and Joseph Andrei Zavusky, who established the library in 1747 and were the founders of the first large-scale public/national library in Poland. After their death the library was taken over by the state and became the Zavusky Library of the Republic. Unfortunately, after the Kosciuszko uprising, Poland lost its independence and the Russians shipped the entire collection of books to St. Petersburg. The repatriated collection, a symbol of Polish culture associated with the National Library, was later completely destroyed in October 1944.

The vision of establishing a national library was inherited in the thinking and behavior of generations of Poles until after the country gained independence in 1918, when the Polish National Library was officially established in Warsaw by presidential decree on February 24, 1928. Since then, before and after World War II, relevant laws and regulations were issued to regulate library activities, and only on June 27, 1997, the Law on Libraries was promulgated to finally establish the function of the National Library in the national library system as the main national library.

In accordance with the provisions of the law of June 27, 1997, the National Library is under the Ministry of Culture and Arts, and it is both the central library of the country and one of the most important cultural institutions of the country. It has a clear and multiple identity and undertakes a variety of functions. While exercising the duties of a research library in the humanities, it is also the main archive of national documents, a national bibliographic information center, a major research institute in librarianship and an important methodological center in the Polish library community.

Given the intellectual potential of its multiform collections, the National Library is now not only one of the most important national cultural units, but perhaps the most important. This makes it imperative for the National Library to take seriously its obligations to national resources and to the Polish nation. The role of the National Library of Poland is not only to manage the collections, staff, and reading rooms as well as possible, but more importantly, it must participate as actively as a cultural institution in the intellectual and cultural life of Poles. In addition to protecting, preserving and promoting the Polish heritage, the National Library carries on the expectations of its predecessors and inherits the responsibility of continuing and promoting the Polish national culture and historical traditions.

The basic mission of the National Museum is to collect, store and permanently preserve the intellectual products of Poland. This includes manuscripts on parchment and paper, early editions of Polish printed books, modern domestic publications, charts, engravings, audiovisual and electronic documents, and publications in Polish or published abroad that are related to Poland. The National Gallery's collection of manuscripts, printed books, and native Polish publications, foreign publications that were once part of historic Polish collections, and modern foreign publications in the humanities will facilitate participation in the globalization of culture.

Over the years the National Library of Poland, like other libraries around the world, has faced the problem of the deterioration of the 19th-20th century industrial mass-produced books, not only old books but also the most recent collections. A series of preventive measures have been developed as a result of painstaking conservation practices over time. The collection is systematically disinfected, temperature and humidity are controlled, and microorganisms and storage conditions are monitored at all times. In recent years, the National Library has made significant improvements to its collections, thanks to the climate control of the new library stacks. These tireless efforts will help to preserve the vast majority of Poland's cultural heritage resources.