Ossolineum Library » Collections » Periodicals

Periodicals

The Periodicals Division contains periodicals published since 1801. The collection profile of periodicals follows that of the Library of the National Ossolinski Institute.

Characteristics of the periodicals collection

The Periodicals Division collects scholarly journals in the humanities in the fields of literary studies, linguistics, history, art history, philosophy, sociology, library and information science, as well as pedagogy, psychology, religious studies; we also have a selection of popular periodicals aimed at a wide audience, children's press, women's press, renowned popular science and satirical journals, and official publications.

An important group of periodicals, comprising more than 1,800 titles, are emigrant scholarly publications in the humanities, official organs of Polish political, social and cultural institutions, and periodicals published among the larger Polish diaspora. There are also rare and often unique periodicals, including many 19th century daily newspapers. The pride of the Ossolineum is a rich collection of press from the national uprisings, the period of the Great Emigration, conspiratorial publications from the Second World War and underground prints.

Part of the collection consists of periodicals of Lwów (Lviv) provenance, which are included in the National Library's Collection. Although the Ossolineum's collections of periodicals from the 19th and the first half of the 20th century are among the richest in Poland, they are still being supplemented and the Lwów (Lviv) collection is being reconstructed. The most valuable periodicals are microfilmed and made available in this form in the Microforms and Digital Collections Division Reading Room.

Since 2003, the Division has been researching the Polish press kept in the Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine in Lviv. Part of this resource is the pre-war Ossolineum collection. The result of this work is a Catalogue of Polish and foreign-language periodicals on Polish topics held in the Stefanyk Library, covering the period from the end of the 18th century to 1939, and containing descriptions of some 9,000 periodical titles. On this basis, titles not found in bibliographies, unavailable or scattered in national libraries were identified and digitised. Thanks to the digitisation of the periodicals, it has become possible to bring back into the scholarly and cultural circulation a hitherto virtually inaccessible part of the Polish press collection, which readers can now access online in the Digital Resources Database.

History of the collection

The Ossolineum's periodical collections were among the largest and most complete in the country before the war; often the periodicals in the library were the only surviving copies.

The first titles came from the founder's collection and donations. Due to the very short period of publication of periodicals in the first half of the 19th century, a great deal of effort was required to collect them. Society, not infrequently émigré circles, helped in this regard, and as a result the Ossolineum had a considerable collection of Polish publications of the period. Only Polish periodicals were added to the collection, most of them from Galicia. The profile of the collection changed in the second half of the 19th century. Foreign periodicals were added to the collection. However, the real changes, especially in terms of quantity, came in the 20th century. Subscriptions began, and by 1912, 95 of the collected 283 titles had been acquired in this form. In 1927, by decree of the Minister of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment and the Minister of the Interior, the Ossolineum was granted a compulsory copy, and by 1939 the number of current titles had risen to 1,700.

The pre-war periodicals collection consisted of 4,989 titles, of which only a small part made it to Wroclaw: 1,293 titles, of which only 706 were complete, including valuable periodicals from the time of the national uprisings, the Great Emigration and numerous scientific journals. Among those that remained in Lwów (Lviv), a large group is made up of newspapers - the pride of the pre-war Ossolineum - and emigration publications.

During the Lwów (Lviv) period, periodicals were collected and stored together with books, forming an integral part of the book collection. The Ossolineum in Wroclaw opened a new chapter in the history of the collection. It was decided to separate the periodicals from the rest of the collection, they were re-catalogued under the Lviv accession number and are still being supplemented.