St. Clement of Ohrid National Library

History

The library was founded in 1944 with a modest stock of 150,000 items. Its activity has its foundations in the rich tradition of literature and libraries on Macedonian soil. The patron saint, Clement of Ohrid (830-916), established t he first monastic library, in Ohrid. From 1945 the St. Clement of Ohrid National and University Library was a deposit library for Yugoslav publications. Since the independence of the Republic of Macedonia in 1991, it has only received Macedonian deposit items.

In 1972 the Library moved into custom-built premises in the central part of the city, with an overall area of 11,217 sqaure metres, of which 2,800 are storage space and 2,300 for readers. There is seating for 500 readers.

The Library has some 120,000 users annually, of whom 75% are students and 15% scientists and scholars, the remainder beloning to other categories.

Today the Library employs a staff of 150, the majority of whom have higher qualifications in various fields and academic or professional degrees.

Functions

The St. Clement of Ohrid National and University Library is the national and central library headquarters of the Republic of Macedonia. It also functions as the university library of the University of Skopje, a bibliographical and referral centre, the na tional ISSN centre and the national ISBN agency.

Book Holdings

The St. Clement of Ohrid National and University Library has the largest and richest general stock of scholarly and scientific works in the country.

The general stock includes 3,000,000 items:

• 720,000 monograph titles
• 1,320,000 volumes of periodicals and newspapers and other sorts of printed materials (patents, standards, postcards, posters, etc.).

The specialized collections include:

• 260 old Slavonic manuscripts
• 4,231 old printed and rare books and periodicals
• 11,382 oriental manuscripts and printed books in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian in Arabic script
• 815 prints and drawings
• 7,255 cartographic items
• 51,719 archive copies of Macedonian publications from 1944 to the present day
• 4,029 microfilms
• 7,800 doctoral dissertations, Master's theses, and scientific and scholarly research projects