Biblioteca Naţională din Malta: scurte dezvăluiri despre istoricul instituţiei, structura colecţiilor şi specificul serviciilor oferite publicului cititor
Malta National Library: Short Reveals Concerning the History, the Collections Structure and the Specific Services Offered to Readers

Summary/Abstract: This study is based on the idea of presenting Malta National Library - which is one of the oldest libraries from Europe - on three levels: historical and architechtural dimension, geographical dimension and the cultural one. The history of Malta National Library begins in 1555 and it is close connected to Claude de Sengle. First, it had the aspect of an archivistic fond, by collecting the documents of the Order of Knights of Malta; then, in 1776, a knight, Fra' Louis Guérin de Tencin, offered his documents to the library, in order to be known by all those interested; thus, it became public library, for a long time known as Bibliotheca Tanseana. At the beginning of the XIXth century, library’s fond totalized around 80.000 volumes and its character was already an encyclopaedic one; since 1976, it is known as the National Library of Malta. Malta National Library has very valiant special collections, divided into four categories: incunabula - that consists on 60 volumes, the most important being those who offer information about the history and structure of the Order of Knights of Malta; manuscripts - about 1.600 documents from different domains, such as literature, arts, history, chemistry and geography; Melitensia Collection - that consists on ancient newspapers and magazines, published in Malta, Gozo and Comino; finally, the collection of cartographic and topographic documents - comprising maps published between the XVIth-XXth centuries and topographic plans of different geographical areas. Considering the specific services offered to its readers, Malta National Library may be included in the European library’s system. It is organized according to general rules of bibliotheconomy, who’s purpose is to respond, in an appropriate way, to the requests of its public. Its interest for the editorial activity is also outstanding. We also have to mention the annual tradition of organizing the international book trade, a specific way of promoting the passion of reading.

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